Elizabeth Ross

Hometown: Springfield, PA

I am always looking for a new challenge. Many people in academia thrive on (or at least strive for) the philosophy of “knowledge for knowledge’s sake.” And I have a little bit of that but mostly I consider myself to be chasing “achievement for achievement’s sake.” I try new and difficult things just to prove to myself that I can do them, because I love the feeling of persevering through something challenging. So after I submitted my Lafayette application and was sent an email inviting me to apply for the DYER Fellowship as well, I went for it. Partly because the actual process of trying to become a Fellow was full of unique and interesting challenges on its own and would be a great experience regardless of if I got in or not, but also because being a Fellow would mean being in a community of other diverse and creative leaders challenging themselves to do something new and different. I would get to work through the various interesting and new challenges of the different projects I would create in the Fellowship and do it with a team and a community who wanted the same thing. And in the end, I did rise to the challenge and become a DYER Fellow and I can not wait for the rest of the challenges to come.