The Heart of the Matter

Leah Ellis wasn’t even old enough to vote when she first became immersed in complex questions about human physiology –subjects like how inflammation within the body can help scientists detect and treat health issues like heart disease.

“By the time I was a junior in high school, I knew I wanted to do something in dietetics, with a concentration in cardiovascular health,” she recently recalled.

Now in her third year at Radford, Ellis, a foods and nutrition major from Fredericksburg, Virginia, is gaining extensive recognition for her abilities and accomplishments.

Last summer, she became the first Highlander accepted into Virginia Tech’s Translational Obesity Undergraduate Research Scholars (TOUR-Scholars) program, and she’s earned such awards as the Radford University Foundation’s Mary Kathryn Phipps Brewer ’49 Memorial Scholarship, the Highlander Distinction Scholarship and a National Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics scholarship.

More recently, she presented research before Radford’s Board of Visitors’ Academic Excellence and Student Success Committee and, in November, spoke at the university’s Day of Gratitude.

For Ellis, her work represents a quest she began as a child after she awoke one morning to learn her father had suffered a severe heart attack. In the years that followed, it would not be his last.

“My immediate response was: ‘How can I help?’” Ellis said.

Despite her youth, she started helping prepare family meals, as her father began a diet based on physician Caldwell Esselstyn’s 2007 publication “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease.”

“That book changed my dad’s life and my life because it essentially described a study in which Esselstyn took patients suffering from cardiovascular disease and put them into a very strict vegan diet,” Ellis explained. “No oils, no fats, no sodium. Basically, no nothing.

“I read the book and figured out how to cook for my dad and do this alongside him. He stuck to that diet for about six months, and he’s had no problems since,” she said.

“That began my passion for dietetics. It’s also the reason I went vegetarian. I ended up going down the inflammation path because I wanted to see if there was a different aspect of cardiovascular disease I wasn’t aware of.”

That drive expanded in her freshman year, when she joined the Highlander Research Rookies program, which allows students to investigate their interests alongside faculty mentors.

In 2022, Ellis received a Student Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) for a project in which she developed a plan that could be used in evaluating blood plasmas, which can help predict a person’s chances of having inflammationbased health issues, like strokes and myocardial infarctions.

She then put her skills to work as the sole external representative tapped to join nine Virginia Tech students as a TOUR-Scholar, and from May through July, was part of an eightweek research study through Tech’s Department of Human Nutrition, determining how artificial sweeteners impact the glucose levels in adults at risk for developing Type 2 diabetes.

The program’s co-director, Deborah Good, described TOURS as a difficult summer internship: “Our expectation is that they get a strong project, that they’re working on a graduate level.

“Leah works really hard; she asks the right questions, and she’s not afraid to seek help when she needs it. She’s an amazing student,” Good said. “One thing that brings me joy is to see students succeed, and I know that Leah is one of those.”

Indeed, Ellis flourished in her work and was hired to stay on with the project, working about 10 hours a week on top of her current classwork.

“I am very excited that we have been able to have her continue to contribute to our research this fall,” said Associate Professor Valisa Hedrick, who mentored Ellis.

“One of the most outstanding qualities Leah possesses is her high capacity for understanding complex mechanisms, with a desire to dive deeper into unknown concepts. I have never worked with an undergraduate who has demonstrated such passion for research.”

As Ellis approaches her senior year, she’s applying for new internships and would ultimately like to work exclusively in research.

“What I’d really like is to become something like a food scientist or chemist for the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture).

“That’s research all day, all the time,” Ellis said. “Whatever I do, I would like my future career to have something to do with nutrition and food.”