Donovan Ellis, MA

Undergraduate School
University of Florida

Graduate School
Georgia State University

Interests and Career Goals

My clinical and research interests can be found at the intersection of anxiety pathology/treatment efficacy, multicultural competencies, and the integration of novel technologies for improving treatment access for diverse and underrepresented communities. I am particularly interested in examining strategies that improve the uptake, implementation, and dissemination of digital mental health interventions (e.g., mobile apps, web-based programs, virtual reality) among minoritized communities, and developing frameworks for integrating these tools into routine clinical care. I one day hope to establish a premier interdisciplinary clinical treatment hub in a medical setting providing cutting edge telehealth options to diverse communities.

Favorite Pastimes

I am avid listener of podcasts and audiobooks and consider myself a bit of a consumer tech enthusiast. I am also passionate about eating good food and am always open to trying new cuisines. In my downtime, you will almost certainly find me playing video games, watching movies and listening to R&B, trap jazz and classical music.

Why I Chose Duke

I chose Duke because of the opportunity to deepen my exposure to and training in rigorous cognitive behavioral therapies, especially full-model Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. I am excited to learn more about short and long-term care management and translating the skills based approach of CBT and DBT into effective digital mental health treatments that can expand our capacity to meet pervasive unmet mental health needs. Duke was an exceptional training site for meeting these aspirations. Additionally, I was compelled by the infectious collegiality of the Duke team and commitment to fostering clinically responsive care while promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives.

Research Interests

Graduate Research Assistant, Anxiety Research & Treatment Lab - Georgia State University (2017 – present)

Dissertation: Methodologies for the Successful Dissemination of Digital Mental Health Interventions: Improving User Attitudes among Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.
Leveraged experimental design, meta-analytic review, and structural equation modeling methodologies to analyze treatment-seeking attitudes and behaviors towards technology-enhanced treatments among racially/ethnically minoritized communities.
Directed training and mentorship of undergraduate research assistants.
Implemented extensive organizational policies that streamlined data collection, recruitment, data-processing, and reference management.
Spearheaded the development of diversity, equity, and inclusion webpages that outlined actionable strategies for culturally responsive clinical research and dissemination.

Post-Baccalaureate Research Lab Manager, Social-Cognitive and Affective Development Lab – University of Florida (2015 -2017)

Supervised four collaborative and interdisciplinary studies related to cybersecurity and psychological vulnerabilities among young and older adult populations.
Coordinated all aspects of participant recruitment, retention, and micro-longitudinal data collection with an attention to methodological rigor.
Directed the recruitment and training of 25 undergraduate research assistants.
Oversaw data management, analysis, and manuscript writing efforts.

Research Assistant, Attitudes & Social Cognition Lab - University of Florida (2013 – 2015)

Utilized the Implicit Association Test and Project Implicit® to collect data relating to prejudicial attitudes, feminist self-identification, and environmental conscientiousness.
Administered social psychological replication and reproducibility studies in partnership with the Open Science Collaboration.
Developed and proposed an undergraduate senior honor’s thesis that examined stereotype endorsement among African Americans.

Publications

Ellis, D. M. & Anderson, P. L., (2021). Improving the acceptability of Internet-based cognitive-behavioral therapy among Black Americans. Technology, Mind, and Behavior, 2(3). https://doi.org/10.1037/tmb0000044
Molloy, A., Ellis, D. M., Su, L., & Anderson, P. L., (2021). Improving the acceptability and uptake of Internet-based cognitive-behavioral therapy. Frontiers in Digital Health, 3, 653686. https://doi.org/10.3389/fdgth.2021.653686
Lin, T., Capecci, D., Ellis, D. M., Rocha, H., Dommaraju, S., Oliveira, D., & Ebner, N. C., (2019). Susceptibility to spear-phishing email: Effects of internet user demographics and email content. In Proceedings of Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI’19), 26(5), 32.
Oliveira, D., Lin, T., Rocha, H., Ellis, D., Dommaraju, S., Yang, H., Weir, D., Marin, S., & Ebner, N. C., (2019). Empirical analysis of weapons of influence, life domains, and demographic-targeting in modern spam - An age-comparative perspective. Crime Science. 8(1), 3. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-019-0098-8
Ellis, D. M., Guastello, A. D., Anderson, P. L., & McNamara, J. P. H. (2019). How racially concordant therapists and culturally responsive online profiles impact treatment-seeking among Black and White Americans. Practice Innovations, 4(2), 75–87. https://doi.org/10.1037/pri0000084
Rahman, M. S., Lin, T., Akefirad, R., Ellis, D., Perez, E., DeLong, L. A., Cappos, J., Brun, Y., Ebner, N. C., & Oliveira, D. (2018). API blindspots: Why experienced developers write vulnerable code. In Proceedings of the USENIX Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS’18)
Ebner, N. C., Ellis, D. M., Lin, T., Rocha, H. A., Huizi, Y., Dommaraju, S., Soliman, A., Woodard, D. L., Turner, G. R., Spreng, N. R., & Oliveira, D. (2018). Uncovering susceptibility risk to online deception in aging. Journal of Gerontology: Series B, gby036. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gby036
Oliveira, D., Rocha, H., Yang, H., Ellis, D., Dommaraju, S., Muradoglu, M., Weir, D. H., Soliman, A., Lin, T., & Ebner, N. C. (2017). Dissecting spear phishing emails: On the interplay of user age, weapons of influence, and life domains in predicting phishing susceptibility. In CHI Conference Proceedings on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'17), 6412–6424. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025831

Manuscripts Under Review or Preparation

Ellis, D. M., Draheim, A. A., Anderson, P. L., (in revision). Culturally adapted digital mental health interventions for racial/ethnic minorities: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
Ellis, D. M. & Anderson, P. L., (in prep). Cross-cultural validation of the Attitudes towards Psychological Online Interventions Questionnaire among Black Americans.

Conference Presentations

(*supervised undergraduate student)

Peraltilla*, M., Ellis, D. M., Delbasso, C., Kuperminc, G., & Anderson, P. L. (2022, June). Attitudes towards psychological online interventions within a Hispanic community. [Oral Presentation]. The 1st Annual Conference for the Society for Digital Mental Health (SDMH), Virtual.
Ellis, D. M., & Anderson, P. L. (2021, November). The effectiveness and acceptability of culturally adapted digital mental health interventions among racial and ethnic minorities: A systematic review [Poster presentation]. The 55th Annual Convention for the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), Virtual.
Ellis, D. M., & Anderson, P. L. (2021, March). An experimental study to improve attitudes towards internet-based cognitive-behavioral therapy among Black Americans. In Anderson P. L. (Chair). Engaging Digital Technologies to Promote Resilience and Recovery [Symposium]. The 41st Annual Anxiety and Depression Conference (ADAA), Virtual.
Ellis, D. M., Molloy, A., Su, L., & Anderson, P. L. (2020, March). The impact of racial and sexual minority identities on the acceptability of internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy [Poster presentation]. The 40th Annual Anxiety and Depression Conference (ADAA), San Antonio, TX (Conference canceled).
Ellis, D. M., & Anderson, P. L. (2019, November). Methods for improving the acceptability of therapist-assisted internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy among Black Americans [Poster presentation]. The 53rd Annual Convention for the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), Atlanta, GA.
Ellis, D. M., & Anderson, P. L. (2019, March). Mental health stigma and acceptability of therapist-assisted internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy among Black Americans [Poster presentation]. The 39th Annual Anxiety and Depression Conference (ADAA), Chicago, IL.
Ellis, D. M., Packard, G., & Anderson, P. L. (2018, November). Who’s in my house? The relations among publishing house, journal impact factor, and the reporting of demographics in randomized controlled trials for anxiety disorders [Poster presentation]. The 52nd Annual Convention for the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), Washington, D.C.
Ellis, D. M., & Anderson, P. L. (2018, April). Ethnicity moderates the relation between stereotype confirmation concerns and cognitive bias among people with social anxiety disorder [Poster presentation]. The 38th Annual Anxiety and Depression Conference (ADAA), Washington, D.C.
Ellis, D. M., Rocha, H. A., Weir, D. H., Dommaraju, S., Yang, H., Muradoglu, M., Oliveira, D., & Ebner, N. C. (2016, April). Age-related vulnerabilities to social engineering attacks [Poster presentation]. The 2016 biennial Cognitive Aging Conference (CAC), Atlanta, GA.