Dr. Alicia Ellis is Director of the Center for Agriculture and National Security at Arizona State University, where she is also a Professor of Practice and Director of the Master of Arts in Global Security program. Her work sits at the intersection of national security, economic statecraft and agriculture, with a particular focus on food and agricultural systems as strategic infrastructure in an era of geopolitical competition.
Ellis’s research examines how agricultural supply chains, critical inputs, infrastructure and technology create both vulnerabilities and sources of national power. Her work focuses on economic coercion, gray-zone competition, supply chain resilience, contested logistics, and the strategic implications of food production, water systems, land use and global commodity markets. She designs and leads scenario-based exercises and wargames that bring together government, industry, producers and researchers to identify systemic risks, test responses and strengthen resilience.
As Director of the Center for Agriculture and National Security, Ellis leads an interdisciplinary effort to bridge two communities that have traditionally operated separately: agriculture and national security. The Center conducts research and risk analysis, convenes leaders across government, industry and academia, develops scenario-based exercises, and builds education and workforce programs focused on protecting and leveraging U.S. agricultural capabilities as an element of national security and national power.
Ellis also directs ASU’s Master of Arts in Global Security program, an interdisciplinary graduate program focused on preparing students to analyze complex security challenges across traditional disciplinary and professional boundaries. She teaches courses on war and conflict, economic statecraft and agricultural security and leads applied educational initiatives connecting students with national security practitioners and real-world problems.
Prior to joining ASU, Ellis served as a U.S. Air Force officer, deploying twice as an Air Battle Manager in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, including service as a Joint Air Operations Center Liaison Officer. She was later selected as a Presidential Management Fellow, serving at the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Financial Research and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations.
Her academic and professional work is informed by firsthand experience in agriculture. Ellis and her husband operate a farm in Arizona’s East Valley, where her husband’s family has farmed and ranched for six generations. That experience has helped shape her interest in the connections between agricultural production, global supply chains and national security.
Ellis holds a PhD in Political Science from Arizona State University, an MA in International Relations from St. Mary’s University and a BS in Political Science from Northern Illinois University.