Dr. Wanida Lewis

Wanida Lewis, PhD serves as the Founder and Executive Director of Crescendo Foods, Africa’s first food innovation hub located in Accra, Ghana. Prior to starting her nonprofit, Dr. Lewis was a Senior Economic Evaluation Program Advisor for the Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues at the U.S. Department of State where she was responsible for evaluating global STEM and women’s economic development programming. She also served as an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow/Foreign Affairs Officer in the Economic and Business Affairs Bureau’s Office of Agricultural Policy where she developed the bureau’s gender policy strategy. Additionally, she made key contributions in the development of outreach programs enhancing women’s participation in agriculture in Ethiopia, Ghana, and South Africa. In 2015, she was selected as a German Marshall Fund’s Marshall Memorial Fellow. 

Prior to her work at the State Department, Dr. Lewis was an R&D scientist at General Mills, Inc. in Minneapolis, Minnesota and was selected as a German Marshall Fund’s Marshall Memorial Fellow in 2015. Dr. Lewis earned a PhD in Food Science from North Carolina State University, where she has an endowment at the Department of Food, Bioprocessing, and Nutritional Sciences. She also holds a Master of Science degree in Analytical Chemistry from North Carolina Central University, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry at Saint Augustine's University.