Ell is an Ernest P. Larson professor of Health, Ethnicity and Poverty at the School of Social Work at the University of Southern California, and has been a faculty member there since 1980. She has a lifelong commitment to improving the health and well-being of people facing serious and chronic illness, mental health conditions, low-income and poverty, discrimination on account of immigrant or ethnic minority status and other obstacles to receiving quality health care.
She was awarded the NASW Knee/Wittman Award for Lifetime Achievement in Health and Mental Health Practice in 2013, and her pioneering approach to social work research and advocacy in health care has continued and expanded since the early 1970s.
She was awarded the NASW Knee/Wittman Award for Lifetime Achievement in Health and Mental Health Practice in 2013, and her pioneering approach to social work research and advocacy in health care has continued and expanded since the early 1970s.