Engineer Turned Lung Cancer Activist

When Janet Elizabeth Freeman-Daily ’78 found out in January 2011 that she had stage three lung cancer, she was stunned. The former aerospace engineer did the only thing she could think to do: She turned to research. Freeman-Daily started learning everything she could about the disease, and she began to form relationships with other cancer patients online via forums and online communities.

Eventually, her research and relationships motivated her to draw from her past science writing courses at MIT and start a blog to share what she had found in her research, to help make connections, and to educate fellow lung cancer patients. From her blog, Gray Connections, Freeman-Daily became a known resource for information in the lung cancer community. She was asked to speak at universities and events, and her passion for learning and advancing her care turned into a role as a lung cancer patient advocate—even landing her on the cover of the fall 2018 issue of Cancer Today.

Watch this video to learn more about her journey.