Rachel Ellis is an Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland. She is also a Faculty Associate of the Maryland Population Research Center and a Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Sociology. She currently serves as the Director of the CCJS Undergraduate Honors Program.

Using qualitative methods – especially ethnography and interviews – Dr. Ellis' work focuses on women's experiences of punishment in the United States. Research areas include prison, reentry, probation, inequality, surveillance, and state narratives. She has also published on organizational theories of prisons and best practices in qualitative methodology. Her first book, In This Place Called Prison: Women's Religious Life in the Shadow of Punishment (University of California Press), has been recognized with awards from the American Society of Criminology, the American Sociological Association, and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Current projects include a Russell Sage Foundation-funded interview study of women's experiences on probation and a mixed-methods study of the impacts of parental incarceration and state surveillance on the next generation.