Deaf Scholar Bound for Medical School

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Michelle Ludwig, a profoundly deaf senior from Germantown, Tenn., will graduate from Purdue University with a bachelor's degree in pharmaceutical science at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, May 13, in the Elliott Hall of Music. Purdue will conduct four commencement ceremonies on the West Lafayette campus May 12-14.

She completed her degree in four years with a grade-point average of 3.81.

The recipient of the recently revitalized Amelia Earhart Scholarship will head to medical school in the fall, following in the footsteps of her grandfather, a family practitioner.

Ludwig lost her hearing to a bout of spinal meningitis at age 2. Because she was already talking when she became ill, she has always been able to speak and is adept at lip-reading. She uses hearing aids to make use of what residual hearing she has, and she managed most of her smaller Purdue classes and laboratories without additional assistance. A note taker was provided by the Office of the Dean of Students for larger classrooms and lecture halls.

Ludwig's disability has barely registered as a blip on the radar screen of her college career, which has included membership in Phi Eta Sigma, serving as a Purdue Alumni Student Ambassador, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, and studying abroad in Madrid, Spain. Ludwig spent spring break of her junior year with a church group visiting Haiti, where the volunteers assisted in rebuilding hurricane-damaged communities. She's also a certified emergency medical technician and completed an internship as a clinical nutritionist at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

Michelle Ludwig, with a painting she bought during spring break last year while she was working with a church group to repair hurricane damage in Haiti. Ludwig, who will graduate from Purdue on May 13, is holding a photograph of herself and another volunteer, with the Haitian children they sponsored. (Purdue News Service Photo by Vince Walter)