ELLIE PAZOL
2025-26 Traveling Fellow
The Voices of Those Who Rose Before Us: Elderly Activism in an Ever-Aging and Changing World
As a Keegan Traveling Fellow, Ellie will study older adults and the ways in which they serve as activists on local, national, and global scales. The world is aging rapidly, driven by increasing life expectancy as well as declining fertility rates, and this demographic shift makes centering the voices of these activists more critical than ever. Ellie will explore what it means to be elderly across different regions of the world, as conceptions in the United States often medicalize and infantilize this population.
She will consider questions such as: what are the different forms of activism in which the elderly engage? Where do systems support these movements, and where do they hinder them? What are the personal and community-wide impacts of these movements? Do physical aspects of aging and ability alter modes of activism?
Ellie aims to travel across five continents throughout the year while examining cultural attitudes, analyzing welfare systems, and investigating social roles of older adults in vastly different global contexts. She hopes to engage with individuals at the heart of these movements to explore why their voices are needed in the first place and what they find to be worth fighting for.
Hometown: Northbrook, Illinois and Asheville, North Carolina
Majors/Minors: Medicine, Health, & Society/Special Education
At Vanderbilt, Ellie served as the Director of Recruitment for Vanderbilt University Tour Guides, the Training Chair for Transfer Connect, and a Transfer Student Leader. She combined her interests in medicine and special education at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center where she conducted research on brain and behavioral factors of children with autism spectrum disorder. Throughout her time in college, Ellie also taught nutrition education lessons at elementary schools in Nashville through the School of Nursing, served as an intern on a Misophonia Research Fund study, and worked at Trader Joe’s.
Ellie’s parents, both former educators and avid travelers, instilled in her a curiosity about the world from a young age. In the spring of 2024, Ellie studied abroad in India, South Africa, and Argentina as part of a semester-long public health program. While abroad, she completed a community-based research project on aging and intergenerational care and witnessed the power of Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, an Argentinian human rights group composed of older women. Learning about the health care systems that support older adults and witnessing the activism of Las Madres served as catalysts for her fellowship project.
In her free time, Ellie loves to hike, bake, and watch Survivor. After her year of travel, she hopes to attend graduate school to become an occupational therapist, specializing in geriatric care while continuing to explore her passion for global health.