Ellen A. Wartella

College of Liberal Arts, April 9, 2015

Ellen Wartella is the Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor of Communication, professor of psychology, professor of human development and social policy, professor of medical social sciences, director of the Center on Media and Human Development, and chair of the Department of Communications in the School of Communications at Northwestern University. She received a master’s degree (1976) and a Ph.D. (1977) in mass communications from the School of Journalism in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota. She is an internationally renowned expert on the role of media in children’s development. Wartella’s work has focused on the impact of advertising on children’s food decisions and the role of food marketing in childhood obesity. She has been an extraordinary contributor to the Institute of Medicine (TOM) and to academic research and public policy. She had held eight research fellowships, serves or has served on 21 national advisory boards, has been the principal investigator (PT) or co-PT for 11 grants, authored or co-authored 14 books, 47 book chapters, and 61 journal articles. She has served on four Institute of Medicine, Academies of Science committees, serving as chair of one of them. She also served on the Board of Children, Youth, and Families for the National Research Council for the National Academies of Science. In addition, Wartella has served as the invited keynote speaker at numerous national and international conferences and forums as well as an invited lecturer at many others.