Fellows

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 under-served 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.