[1] On April 5, 2011, Gillis was traveling with an anti-Gaddafi militia force, with fellow journalists James Foley, Manu Brabo and Anton Hammerl, during the collapse of the Muammar Gaddafi regime, when they were attacked by a rival group.
Gillis graduated from Hopkins School in New Haven, Connecticut in 1994, and afterwards attended the University of Chicago where she received her B.A.
[6] Gillis had delivered the Doctoral dissertation in medieval history that earned her her PhD from Harvard University a year before her capture.
[9] The rump of the Libyan government gave Gillis and her colleagues a one-year suspended sentence when it released them on Wednesday May 18, 2011 six weeks after their capture.
[10] Gillis appeared before the United States Senate's Judiciary Committee on July 28, 2011, when it was considering a bill on improving US compliance with its obligations to provide consular access to foreigners the US government arrests.