Alumni
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Lizzie Carsello
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Lizzie began her service by utilizing her passions, especially art and athletics. In the summer before her freshman year of high school, Lizzie, her brother, and two cousins started a service project called Share the Gift that brought music and art to those who didn’t have access to arts in her local community. A year later, Lizzie also started an initiative at her school called Teens care in which she coordinated groups of volunteers to tutor students at Hope Outreach Center and assist a soccer league for preschoolers with autism, while volunteering herself every week.
Throughout her years at Vanderbilt, Lizzie has dedicated much of her time to studying feminist philosophy and learning about underlying issues and injustices that cause and perpetuate social problems. In her first two years at Vanderbilt, Lizzie was involved with the high school youth education program at Nashville’s International Center For Empowerment (NICE), a resettlement and outreach organization for immigrants and refugees. In her second year, she acted as Grassroots’ Site Leader for NICE. Currently, Lizzie interns at the Vanderbilt’s Margaret Cuninggim Women’s Center creating and presenting programming on feminism and assisting with other women’s center initiatives. She also volunteers in Dr. Anjali Forber Pratt’s research lab which focuses on 1) disability identity development, 2) perceptions of inclusion and disability, and 3) victimization experiences in schools.
Additionally, Lizzie plays for and co-captained Vanderbilt’s women’s ultimate frisbee team (VUDU), and has coached middle school ultimate frisbee clubs for two years. In partnership with Dr. Forber-Pratt, Lizzie dedicated her Ingram Summer Project to conducting research on the perspectives of leaders of youth ultimate frisbee programs on perceptions of, practices to promote, and barriers to wellbeing in their communities. For this research, Lizzie traveled around the U.S. conducting one on one interviews and focus groups, discussing community specific concerns for equity, mental health, sport culture and more. She is currently in the process of analyzing and compiling this data to create an academic article that can be a helpful resource for those working in sport based youth development. Overall, Lizzie feels that she has learned and grown immensely from being a part of Vanderbilt and the Ingram Scholarship Program. She is excited to continue growing and learning from those around her as well as further contribute to her community with the strengths she has built from the initiatives she has been a part of.