Kathleen Ell, who held the Ernst P. Larson Professorship of Health, Ethnicity and Poverty in the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work at the University of Southern California, died on January 29. She was 81 years old.
Professor Ell joined the faculty at the university in 1980 and was promoted to full professor in 1991. She was director of the Hamovitch Research Center and the behavioral health research director of the Center for Innovation and Research on Veteran and Military Families. In a research career that spanned four decades, Professor Ell served as an advocate for social work in translational science and transdisciplinary research partnerships, including community care systems. She was the first to link depression with an increase in mortality among coronary care patients.
Professor Ell was one of 30 social workers inducted into one of the first classes of Fellows for the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare and served as a member of the organization’s board. 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.
Dr. Ell was a graduate of Valparaiso University in Indiana. She earned a master of social work degree and a doctorate in social work from the University of California, Los Angeles.