At 60, Dr. Michele Wise Wright still wonders what she wants to be when she grows up.

The question comes from a woman who has already made a life of solving problems, yet has no intention of letting her accomplishments decide what comes next. She still recognizes the girl from Tuskegee, Alabama, beneath the engineer, executive, advocate and filmmaker. That girl remains curious. The woman she has become knows how much curiosity can set in motion.

Experience has made Dr. Wise Wright more discerning about where she puts her energy. Her ambitions are growing, too, reaching toward children she hopes to inspire and a hometown she dreams of helping heal. At this point in her life, choosing carefully and dreaming expansively belong together.

Her commitment to health equity became intensely personal when her family finally received an answer that should have come much sooner. Her husband, Terry, was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at 54, after decades of symptoms. His experience exposed gaps in awareness, representation and diagnosis, along with assumptions about who could have the disease. Answers for their family brought a responsibility to help other families find theirs.

“Sometimes the problem that breaks your heart can also reveal your purpose,” she says.

Dr. Wise Wright co-founded the National Organization of African Americans with Cystic Fibrosis to address disparities affecting communities historically underrepresented in conversations about the disease. She helped create The Wright Cystic Fibrosis Screening Tool™, a multilingual resource that helps patients and healthcare providers recognize signs and symptoms warranting further evaluation.

She also wrote, directed and executive produced the docudrama 54 YEARS LATE: The Terry Wright Story. Through film, Dr. Wise Wright gives the years before Terry's diagnosis a human face, carrying his experience beyond the families and professionals already familiar with cystic fibrosis.

That connection is personal in another way. Dr. Wise Wright has lived with lupus for more than three decades, an experience she says has deepened her compassion and commitment to better health outcomes. The woman advocating for others understands something about the vulnerability of needing care herself. Having also navigated a severe speech impediment since childhood, she brings a personal understanding of perseverance to a life devoted to helping others find their voices, access better care and imagine possibilities beyond the challenges they face.