Fellows

In Memoriam

Kathleen Ell, DSW

Inducted in 2010

Bio

The Academy regrets to inform you of the passing of Kathleen Ell on January 9, 2021. Professor Ell was one of 30 social workers inducted into the one of the first classes of Fellows for the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare (AASWSW), and served as a member of the Board.

During her 37 years at the University of Southern California, she was recognized as an innovator in the field of mental health care and held the Ernst P. Larson Professorship of Health, Ethnicity and Poverty. In 2012, she was awarded the Knee-Whitman Award for Lifetime Achievement in Health and Mental Health Practice by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW).

We invite you to read the remembrances of her mentees and colleagues.

Dr. Kathleen Ell has conducted extensive research on health care seeking behavior, major depression, socio-economic and psychological distress, quality of life and morbidity, and mortality associated with life-threatening and chronic illness.

A hallmark of her research has been a focus on low-income, ethnically diverse, and underserved populations aimed at bridging psychosocial practice and medicine. Her federal funding and publication record is notable as she has received over $14 million in federal research funding, publishes in high-impact medical journals, heads multidisciplinary research teams, and an evidence-based implementation model has been selected by the National Cancer Institute for its CANCER PLANET web site.

Her clinical trials are designed to test intervention models that are adapted for diverse organizational systems, particularly safety net care systems, and include cost and cost-effectiveness outcomes. Dr. Ell has long been a strong advocate for increasing social work contributions in translational science and research partnerships across disciplines and partnered with community care systems.

To actively promote these agendas across a range of service systems in which social workers are key providers, she worked at the National Institute of Mental Health and served as the executive director for the Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research and is a member of the leadership of the University of Southern California’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute.