She Grew Up Without Vaccines. Now She Teaches Others to Listen — and to Trust Science.

When Elisabeth Marnik was 23 years old, she walked into a doctor's office and asked to be vaccinated against everything at once. She had never received a single vaccine in her whole life. Her mother had raised her to distrust science, so getting vaccinated was a huge act of defiance. That one decision set Marnik on a path to becoming a scientist, a science communicator, and a strong voice for treating vaccine-hesitant people with kindness instead of anger.

Marnik grew up in Thomaston, Connecticut, a small town about 50 miles from Hartford. Her family was deeply religious, and their lives centered around an evangelical church. She and her younger brother were not allowed to watch Disney movies, celebrate Halloween, or even read Harry Potter books at school. Science and scientists, they were told, went against the Bible and could not be trusted.

Her family also struggled with money. Her parents split up when she was young, and sometimes her father would leave just $20 for a whole day's worth of groceries for three people. Fresh fruits and vegetables were too expensive, and Liz later said she became overweight as a result of the limited food choices she had growing up.

Liz and her brother were homeschooled for several years, but Liz had a strong hunger to learn. She convinced her grandmother to buy her a homeschooling course, and she worked through it entirely on her own. Eventually she persuaded her mother to let her enroll in public school, starting in her junior year. That's when she first took a science class and fell in love with it.

After high school, Liz enrolled at Central Connecticut State University. At first she was so quiet that her adviser worried she wouldn't graduate. But everything changed when she began doing research in a science lab — she went from a struggling student to one with nearly a perfect grade point average. By graduation, she had helped write two published research papers.

One turning point came during her junior year, when Liz was overwhelmed and nearly quit school. She had been commuting 40 minutes each way to campus, working a job, applying to graduate school, and helping care for her mother and brother. One night after a family crisis, she drove around for hours, thinking about dropping out, and then discovered a flat tire on her car when she reached campus.

Three professors came out to help her change that tire. As she watched them work, she realized something important: she had been taught that people outside her faith could not be trusted, yet her own pastor's wife had turned her away the night before, while these scientists were bending down to help her. Their support helped her stay in school and graduate in 2011.

When Marnik applied to graduate school, the program required proof of vaccination — and she finally got her shots. She later earned a Ph.D. in immunology and studied autoimmune diseases in Maine. After finishing her doctorate, she discovered she loved teaching people about science even more than she loved doing research.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, Marnik felt a personal duty to help fight false information online. She began posting on Instagram as '@ScienceWhizLiz' and started a newsletter called the Science Classroom. Today she has 64,000 Instagram followers and thousands of newsletter subscribers who rely on her for clear, accurate health information.

Since early 2025, Marnik has served as executive director of The Evidence Collective, a group of doctors and scientists who share accurate health information online. The group creates easy-to-read guides on health topics and holds meetings to help social media influencers talk about science correctly. In one meeting, she brought together scientists and religious leaders to create a pamphlet encouraging measles vaccination in faith communities.

Marnik's main message is one that has made some vaccine supporters uncomfortable: shaming people who hesitate about vaccines does not work. She urges empathy and patience, noting that her own change of heart took four years of caring conversations in college — not a single argument. She believes you can support vaccine rules for schools while still treating doubters with kindness and respect.

Her personal life has also transformed. After years of an unhealthy diet growing up, she lost 100 pounds after moving to Maine, where she had access to a gym, healthy food, and outdoor activities. She became a runner and has completed three marathons. She now lives in Ellsworth with her husband and two children, and they pick their own berries, go hiking, and enjoy the healthy life she never had as a child.

Her mother, Teresa Ryan, has moved to Ellsworth too, and the two see each other often. Ryan still has not changed her mind about vaccines, and she says she fears possible side effects more than the diseases vaccines prevent. But Marnik smiles and calls her mother's small steps of understanding 'progress' — and she believes those small steps are exactly what this kind of slow, patient work looks like.