Tenesha Lewis

Born and raised in Central Virginia, I was blessed to attend Duke University for my undergraduate degree. During that time, I co-founded a non-profit organization with high school friends to help at-promise youth in our community reach college and achieve their dreams. That was the beginning of my public health journey before I even had the words for it. Since then, my work has been all about supporting marginalized communities and getting resources to the people who truly need them. I've been involved in wet lab science, working with HIV and COVID-19 in traditional scientific roles, and also in social science, where you find me now, working on issues of social justice and all the things we've seen since 2020. Lately, my shift has been toward supporting people, particularly women and Black women like myself, in finding ourselves again, finding our joy and whimsy, getting out of burnout, and pivoting because it's never too late to pivot. I make sure we have psychologically safe workspaces and spaces in our communities. A typical day for me is packed but fun, often working 10 to 16 hours doing things I love. I'm a nerd at heart and built my first website in 7th grade, so I spend a lot of time doing tech work, building content for social media, and developing frameworks. As a scientist by training, I have frameworks that guide all my work, and I stay abreast of the literature. I do client work coaching on executive presence, team leadership, and psychological safety. I also do project direction work, taking chaotic or messy spaces and creating order and processes. My days involve everything from programming to operations work to tech and graphic design.