Earlier this year, Adams connected with Reed students who are studying abroad for a field trip to the ancient city of Toledo.
By Bennett Campbell Ferguson
May 27, 2026
In 2013, Reed trustee Liz Adams ’79 began walking the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile pilgrimage through Spain. “Over that time, I just fell in love with the people and the hospitality and the warmth,” Adams says. “It’s just a country I always feel very comfortable in.”
Now, Adams is helping other Reedies feel comfortable in Spain. Last February, she joined a group that included students from Reed, Bard, and Sarah Lawrence for a field trip to the ancient city of Toledo—an experience that affirmed Adams’ belief in the value of travel as a vital part of education.
“Your brain opens up,” Adams says. “You don’t have all the pressures of the day-to-day—doing your laundry, figuring out what you’re going to make for dinner. I think there’s nothing like travel to make people flexible, more compassionate, more understanding.”
The seeds of Adams’ trip were planted three years ago, when she began serving on a presidential advisory council to increase Reed’s presence overseas. Given her affinity for Spain, she was ideally placed to travel with students who had joined Reed’s study abroad program there, a move supported by President Audrey Bilger.
During the trip, Adams saw firsthand the results of the work that Dr. Alberto del Río Malo, Reed’s associate dean of global education and director of international programs, has done to strengthen and expand the college’s international reach.
“I think the magic of what Alberto has built proceeds from the relationships that he has built and cultivated so carefully,” Adams says. “This community that I saw of people who were involved in study abroad is so nurturing and so intelligent and so principled.”
Following the sojourn to Toledo, Adams traveled to Barcelona, where she participated in a conference that allowed her to utilize her scientific background (she was previously executive vice chair of Quorum Review IRB, a privately held independent review board established to promote ethical conduct of clinical research).
“I talked to a number of students about the neuroscience of travel, my experience of living overseas, and my experience of how the brain processes new experiences and new environments and new people,” Adams says.
Adams’ work shows how such experiences can open students’ eyes to the world that awaits them when they graduate. “One of the reasons that I am so truly addicted to travel is because when I am somewhere completely foreign, I always feel like I’m reminded that humanity is good,” Adams says. “People are fundamentally kind beings.”