Dr. Amy Lewis is the daughter of Jayne McShann Lewis and Bennie Lewis and is the granddaughter of Frances McShann Shelton and jazz pianist Jay McShann. Dr. Lewis is a research associate as an Anna Julia Cooper Fellow in the Mead Witter School of Music at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Her research is focused on systemic oppression, equity, and racism in music education. As a public music teacher, she taught K-1, 6-8 general music, beginning band, middle school choir, and jazz band in the Chicagoland suburbs. She received the 2022 Compass Visionary Award, the 2019 Black Faculty, Staff, and Administrators Association Emerging Leader Award, and was also named the 2015 Illinois Education Association Teacher of the Year.

She earned her B.M.E. degree from DePaul University, M.A. from Concordia University, and Ph.D. from Michigan State University. Her work is published in The Bulletin for the Council of Research in Music Education, Action, Criticism, & Theory in Music Education, and Michigan Music Educator Journal, and she is on the editorial board of the Research and Issues in Music Education Journal.