As of 2015 he is a professor of Geography and Environmental Systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County where he directs the Laboratory for Anthroecology.

He is a fellow of the Global Land Programme (Scientific Steering Committee 2012-2017) of Future Earth, a former member of the Anthropocene Working Group of the International Commission on Stratigraphy, a Senior Fellow at the Breakthrough Institute (and coauthor of the Ecomodernist Manifesto), and an advisor to the Nature Needs Half movement.

Ellis' research has explored long-term ecological changes in China's villages,[1][2][3] and in 2008, he produced the first global map of anthropogenic biomes (and coined the term "anthrome") together with Navin Ramankutty.

[4][5][6] In 2019, he helped to lead a massive collaboration of archaeologists to map land use changes around the world over the past 10,000 years.

He has also written a number of articles and opinions communicating his work and other matters relating to humans as agents of ecological change, at Science,[9] Nature,[10] New Scientist,[11][12] The New York Times,[13][14] Breakthrough Journal,[15][16] and other venues.