Meet the candidates asking for your vote on April 1, 2025.
By: Marie Wilson, NCTV17
Published: February 14, 2025 at 7:41 AM CST
It’s no surprise to those who know Naperville native Elijah Darden that he’s earned something prestigious as he approaches his college graduation.
Darden, a 2021 graduate of Neuqua Valley High School, has received the highly-selective Gates Cambridge Scholarship, which funds a year of studies toward his master’s degree at the University of Cambridge in England.
Darden is one of 80 Gates Cambridge Scholars from around the world this year, and one of only 25 from the U.S. The program is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and it awards scholars for intellectual and leadership abilities as well as a commitment to improving the world.
“He always wanted to study abroad,” his mother, Stacie Haen-Darden, said. “I saw something like this was always in his future.”
Darden, 22, grew up as the kind of kid who went to Naperville’s 95th Street Library every week, who loved taking things apart — just to learn how to put them back together. Who picked up piano early, then added trombone, and tuba and euphonium. Who excelled at the discus throw in track and field, while also taking advanced classes and starting an education and equity-focused nonprofit called My Book Wish with his friends at Neuqua.
Elijah Darden excelled musically as well as academically during his time at Neuqua Valley High School. (Photo courtesy Darden family)
“He is one of those once-in-a-lifetime students,” said Darden’s mentor and throwing skills coach from the track and field team, David Ricca. “He excels. He works hard. He asks great questions. And then, he’s just an amazing person.”
The Gates Cambridge Scholarship will help Darden expand his educational achievements. He wants to go to medical school and work to improve health equity through education, policy, and behavior change. Getting his master’s degree in population health sciences at Cambridge first will provide broader context, global connections and research opportunities.
“I wanted to gain a different type of perspective of the medical and health care systems outside of the U.S.,” he said.
While growing up in Naperville, Darden said he saw sharp contrasts between the opportunities he and his peers enjoyed and the disadvantages faced by his parents’ families.
“They come from two very different backgrounds — my father from south side of Chicago and my mother from rural Wisconsin,” said Darden, whose parents are both professors in criminal justice at College of DuPage. “Naperville was a much different environment than they grew up in.”
The family chose Naperville on purpose for schools in Indian Prairie School District 204 and strived to take advantage of all the benefits, Haen-Darden said. The Dardens also made learning a natural part of life, often exploring museums and visiting state capitols or completing educational scavenger hunts while on family vacations.
“We continued, in this house, to take classes. And the kids saw that,” Haen-Darden said. “Lifelong learning is something they were completely exposed to, with both my husband and I. We never stopped taking classes and never stopped learning.”
Darden choose his college destination — and his fields of study — to keep learning in a broader way than many pre-medical students do, he said.
Instead of studying basic biology, he is soon to receive a degree in psychological and brain sciences from Washington University in St. Louis, along with a minor in music. He’s taken classes in ethnomusicality and the psychology of prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping, for a couple examples. And as a certified emergency medical technician, he’s led a student-run emergency medicine organization called the Emergency Support Team.
Elijah Darden is finishing a minor in music along with a major in psychological and brain sciences at Washington University in St. Louis before heading to the University of Cambridge for a year as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. (Photo courtesy WashU – Theo Welling)
Darden also was named a Rhodes Scholars finalist. And his family is no stranger to prestigious awards or international travels.
The Dardens have visited the London area several times to research for a class his parents teach comparing the American justice system with its English counterpart. His mother was a Fulbright Scholar in Turkey and lived there during her senior year of high school, and his father, Theo Darden, was named College of DuPage’s College-Wide Outstanding Full-Time Faculty Member in the 2019-20 year.
Before he heads across the pond for his Gates Cambridge year, Darden said he plans to visit his sister — a 27-year-old family medical doctor in Boston — and apply for a deferral of medical school. He’s been accepted to programs in the Chicago area as well as St. Louis and the northeast.
“It’s been quite a journey,” Darden said about his education thus far. “The most important part has been my opportunity to pursue interdisciplinary studies.”
Featured photo courtesy WashU – Theo Welling
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