Dr. Wanida Lewis is the CEO and Co-Founder of Crescendo Foods, a culinary hub in Accra, Ghana. Dr. Lewis has over ten years experience leading programs, strategic partnerships and economic evaluation initiatives throughout the African continent. Previously, she was a Senior Economic Program Advisor in the U.S. Department of State's Office of Global Women's Issues and a Foreign Affairs Officer/AAAS Fellow in the Office of Agricultural Policy. In 2018, Dr. Lewis founded Young, Gifted, & Brown, LLC, a pipeline program supporting young Ghanaian women and entrepreneurs in STEM. In 2018, she was named by New America as one of thirty five "Black American National Security, and Foreign Policy Next Generation Leaders". In 2019, Young Professionals in Foreign Policy named her the "Gender Issues in Foreign Policy” Fellow. Dr. Wanida E. Lewis Food Science Fellowship Award Endowment was established in 2013 to provide fellowship funding for underrepresented graduate students in the Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences at North Carolina State University. She received a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Saint Augustine’s University, a master’s degree in Analytical Chemistry from North Carolina Central University and a doctoral degree in Food Science from North Carolina State University.