Ellen Pil ’21

Ellen Pil is a junior political science and Arts and Letters pre-health major who is passionate about public policy, global health, and emergency medicine, along with research, service, and Gothic literature.

During the summer of 2019, Ellen worked on policy advocacy to benefit federally qualified healthcare clinics in the Chicago metropolitan area. She has also worked in rural South Africa to educate local healthcare workers about malaria, identify public health concerns, and design intervention strategies. She has previously conducted research on overlapping ideological influences in Gothic literature. She traveled to Munich, Germany with two of her classmates to pursue this project during the spring of 2018. This research was presented at three conferences, most recently at the ACC Meeting of the Minds in Louisville, KY in April 2019. Ellen’s work has been funded by grants from the First Year of Studies, Glynn Family Honors Program, Notre Dame Scholars’ Program, Hesburgh-Yusko Scholars Program, Notre Dame International, and the Flatley Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement.

Ellen is currently studying Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) with Professor Tamara Kay. Project ECHO is a collaborative model that links community healthcare providers with medical experts, thereby enabling vulnerable patients with complex and/or chronic conditions to receive care in their home communities. Ellen focuses on the global spread of the ECHO model and the factors contributing to its diffusion. She primarily works on interview transcript analysis using qualitative data coding software.