Celia Mathews Elliott is an academic professional and instructor in the Department of Physics at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has extensive experience in grant and proposal writing and
funding of scientific research in academic institutions. She has taught principles of effective scientific
and technical communications to advanced physics undergraduates and first-year graduate students since 2000 (check
some lectures here).
Prior to joining the Department of Physics, she worked as a technical editor for three international
peer-reviewed physics journals, and she served as a part-time faculty member at Parkland College, teaching
business management and business writing from 1981 to 1997. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and a
bachelor’s degree in American history from Michigan State University and attended graduate school in educational
psychology at the University of Illinois. She was presented an honorary doctorate in humane letters from South
Ural State University (Russia) in 2003, and the Civilian Research and Development Foundation’s Recognition Medal
in 2005, for her work with scientists in the former Soviet Union. She received the Chancellor’s Academic
Professional Excellence Award from the University of Illinois in 2002, and the Department of Physics’ Davis
Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2013. She is the American Physical Society’s Physics Haiku
Grand Champion (2004).