Taylor Lewis is heading up Wayne State University's National Alumni Association.

Taylor Lewis, MD, ’78, has been named president of the 36,000-member Wayne State University National Alumni Association. A senior pathologist at Quest Diagnostics in Auburn Hills, Mich., Dr. Lewis has been closely associated with the university as an undergraduate, a medical student, and an alumnus. For more than 25 years, his commitment to WSU has been unswerving.

A Detroit native, Dr. Lewis’ route to medical education was anything but direct.  Following high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, serving for five years as a hospital corpsman. Returning to civilian life, Dr. Lewis simultaneously held two jobs as a medical technician at Henry Ford Hospital Labs and Zieger Osteopathic Hospital throughout his undergraduate and medical studies. He completed residency and a fellowship in surgical pathology at William Beaumont Hospital-Royal Oak.

During his last year of medical school in the late 1970s, Lewis joined with fellow students to establish the WSU Black Medical Association Scholarship Fund. Dedicated to providing financial support for minority students, the fund grew through additional gifts, annual student fund-raising efforts and wise investing. Dr. Lewis became active in shepherding the fund from the early 1980s until 1998. That year, at a reception held at the newly opened Museum of African American History, the Black Medical Association Scholarship Fund trustees donated $100,000 to the School of Medicine. An additional $20,000 gift was designated for the Charles F. Whitten, MD, Post Baccalaureate Endowment Fund.

As Dr. Lewis’ responsibilities draw his attention to university-wide matters, he continues to make time for philanthropy, observing that “it is essential to launch deserving students from under-represented segments of our community to success.” Dr. Lewis continues to raise funds to  “pay back” the institution that provided his educational route to professional fulfillment.

Appointed to the School of Medicine Board of Visitors in early 2000, he also chairs the volunteer committee that organized last spring’s inaugural Pathfinders in Medicine Awards, honoring individuals for their visionary leadership and achievements in medicine. Regardless of how wide the scope of his volunteer service broadens, Dr. Lewis keeps faith with his childhood community. Revealingly, for more than 15 years, he has joined with his former neighbors to organize an annual block party in the southwest Detroit area where they grew up.