Transforming communities through nutrition, education and well-being

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Emily Lewis believes in the power of transformation, which touches her life every day.

Lewis, who received her Bachelor of Science in nutrition from Purdue Global in May 2024 and is currently working on her Master of Public Health, was the keynote speaker during Purdue Global’s Oct. 5 commencement ceremonies, held on Purdue University’s West Lafayette campus.

She encouraged the graduates to keep transforming and reminded them to be proud of getting to commencement.

“Transformation is a word that became a lifeline to me as I went through significant changes over the past few years while going through my health issues and deciding to return to school,” Lewis said. “I have decided to look at the adversities in my life as transformations rather than focus on the negatives. Education can be a steppingstone to transform the world.”

A full text of her speech is available online.

Finding ways to heal, persevere

A Boston native, Lewis grew up with a love of dancing.

Lewis started with ballet at age 4. She has studied dance at Boston-area schools and companies for more than two decades. She has performed in New Orleans and Barbados and recently added ballroom dancing to her repertoire.

To her, dancing is not just a passion — it is also a form of healing.

She sees the positive effects of dance firsthand in her work as a dance teacher for adults who have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

Healing is also something that Lewis needed in her personal life.

As the COVID-19 pandemic was raging, Lewis was diagnosed with the BRCA1+ mutation for breast and ovarian cancer. She later discovered a lump in her breast that needed a biopsy.

“It was very lonely and isolating. No one could support me or be with me, and at the time I was living alone in a tiny studio apartment in Boston,” Lewis said.

While Lewis was at home healing in July 2021 from the first stage of a lumpectomy and reconstruction surgery, she decided to go back to school.

Following a double mastectomy in November 2021, she enrolled at Purdue Global to begin working on her bachelor’s degree in nutrition.

“The driving factor for going back to school was that I wanted that year to mean something more to me than just cancer or surgeries,” Lewis said. “I wanted it to be a year I could look back and say, ‘I went back to school!’

“It was the most difficult year of my life, but in hindsight, I am so grateful that school was there because it pushed me to work toward something greater than myself at a time when I needed it most, and I received so much support from Purdue Global.”

Lewis had two reasons why she wanted to study nutrition, tied to her passion for dancing and her desire to understand why so many young women are being diagnosed with breast cancer.

“Being a dancer, my whole life came with an unhealthy view of eating, which I wanted to learn more about and change. I wanted to understand the physiological reasons that athletes need proper nutrition,” she said.

“The second reason came when I received my diagnosis. I started connecting with other young women in the BRCA and breast cancer space and found that so many of them were young like me — in their 20s and 30s,” Lewis said. “No one talks about it, but the world of young cancer patients is massive and only growing. I wanted to understand what is making us sick from a holistic health perspective.”

Enrolling at Purdue Global officially began her journey in studying nutrition as a preventative health practice.

“If we understand what we are putting in our bodies, it makes an enormous difference in our long-term health,” Lewis said. “When looking up nutrition programs, Purdue Global fit the needs of what I was looking for as it provided a well-rounded look at nutrition practices on both a holistic and clinical level.”

An amazing experience

When Lewis enrolled at Purdue Global, Purdue’s online university for working adults, she was thrilled that many of her credits from another institution were eligible to be applied to her degree.

She found the flexibility of online courses to be helpful as she was balancing recovering and working at a nonprofit that aims to address isolation issues in older adults, many with cognitive impairment conditions, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, across the Boston area. She also teaches cooking classes and community workshops that focus on nutrition as a preventative medicine practice.

Lewis also participated in an education abroad experience in London with three of her professors in the School of Health Sciences — Kelly Lucore, Jericho Leftwich and Tricia Berry. Lewis is still in contact with them and the students she met.

“They care about their students and their education,” she said. “They are very motivational, and they talked to us a lot about our options of what we can do. All my professors have been wonderful.”

Comebacks and moving forward

Lewis’ comeback began when she decided to return to school in the face of adversity.

“My comeback came the day I decided to go back to school amid life-altering decisions about cancer and surgery. I did not want that to define me, and to this day I am proud of the decision I made to further my education when I was in such a dark place. I have had to work hard to define my own story with the circumstances life has given me,” she said.

As she works on her master’s degree in public health through Purdue Global, her goal is to combine it with her nutrition degree into a practice that focuses on preventative medicine, including teaching or research.

She points out that her cancer journey will never be over, as she will continually have to get scans and work with her health care team on any scares or potential health changes. But she isn’t letting that stop her from moving forward.

“I’m learning how to live with it and continue to push through life, but it’s not something that really goes away,” Lewis said. “It’s been hard, but I’m using it as fuel to keep going and keep doing school.”

About Purdue Global

Purdue Global is Purdue’s online university for working adults who have life experience and often some college credits. It offers flexible paths for students to earn an associate, bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degree, based on their work experience, military service and previous college credits, no matter where they are in their life journey. Purdue Global is a nonprofit, public university accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and backed by Purdue University. For more information, visit https://www.purdueglobal.edu.