This article is from the archives of the UB Reporter.
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Richard E. Ellis, a longtime member of the history faculty at UB, died May 16 in his son’s home in Tampa, Fla., after battling pancreatic cancer. He was 72.

A noted authority on the U.S. Constitution, Ellis joined the UB faculty in 1974 and was teaching courses on early American constitutional and political history until he became ill in March.

A former department chair, he was the author of several articles on American history and politics, and four books, including “Aggressive Nationalism: McCullock vs. Maryland and the Establishment of Federal Authority,” which was published by Oxford University Press in 2007.

Ellis was the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, among them 2009 UB Sustained Achievement Award, two SUNY Continuing Faculty Development Awards, an undergraduate Student Association Teaching Award and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Born in Bronx and raised in Brooklyn, Ellis earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of California-Berkeley.