Dr. Ellis began teaching at USF in 1981 in the Sociology Department. She joined the Communication Department in 1996. Her current research projects investigate autoethnograpy, narrative writing, and issues of illness and loss. Dr. Ellis is co-editor (with Art Bochner) of the Writing Lives: Ethnographic Narratives Book Series with Left CoastPress and a member of numerous journal review boards. Dr. Ellis spends her summers in the mountains of North Carolina and her spare time playing with her dogs—Sunya and Buddha—and her husband Art.

curriculum vita

Undergraduate course offerings

• Communicating Emotions
• Communicating Illness, Loss, and Grief
• Race and Emotions
• Writing Lives
• Personal Storytelling

Graduate course offerings

• Advanced Qualitative Research Methods
• Autoethnography
• Communicating Emotions
• Communicating Grief and Loss
• Qualitative Methods

Course Syllabi

• Communicating Illness, Grief, and Loss (Fall 2006)
• Qualitative Research Methods (Fall 2005)

Representative publications

• Revision: Autoethnographic Reflections on Life and Work. Walnut Creek, Calif: Left Coast Press, 2009.


• The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel About Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2004.


• Composing Ethnography: Alternative Forms of Qualitative Writing, co-edited with Arthur P. Bochner. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 1996.


• Final Negotiations: A Story of Love, Loss and Chronic Illness. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995.

Awards

• USF President’s Women’s Leadership Award, USF Women’s Status Committee, 2007.
• Distinguished book award (The Ethnographic I), Ethnography Division, NCA, 2005
• Faculty Recognition Award, USF Graduate Communication Association, 2003-2004
• USF President's Faculty Excellence Award, 2003
• Feminist Mentor Award, Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, 2002
• Distinguished Publication Award ("With Mother/With Cild"), Ethnography Division, NCA, 2002
• HUB Award, Department of Communication, USF, 1999
• University Teaching Award, USF, 1999
• Teaching Incentive Program Award, USF, 1998
• Faculty Recognition Award, USF Graduate Communication Association, 1997-1998
• University Teaching Award, USF, 1990
• University Teaching Award, USF, 1987
• Robert E. Park Award for Outstanding Research Monograph in Community and Urban Sociology, American Sociological Association, 1986-1987
• President's Award for Excellence in Teaching, SUNY, Stony Brook, 1979

Education

Ph.D. SUNY at Stony Brook, 1981 (Sociology)
M.A. SUNY at Stony Brook, 1977 (Sociology)
B.A. College of William and Mary, 1973 (Sociology)