He carried out classified research on radar antennas at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory and taught at Boston University and Oberlin College, where he became Full Professor in 1953.

Afterwards, he served in various administrative positions including vice chancellor of academic affairs at University of Maryland Eastern Shore and interim president of Marygrove College in Detroit.

He escaped a possible lynching by making his way south to Mobile, Alabama and finding work as a cook on an international trade ship where he traveled to the Caribbean and the west coast of Africa.

He eventually returned to the United States and moved to Oklahoma, changing his name to Whit Ellis and opening a restaurant.

Her father, James Riley, was likely born into slavery in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1844 before joining the Union Army towards the end of the American Civil War and eventually becoming a Buffalo Soldier.

[3] Ellis earned his master's degree from the University of New Mexico in 1938, though he was forced to march at the end of his graduation line because of his race.

[4][5] In 1938, he presented The efficiency of approximation formulas for determining the rate of interest in amortization schedules to the Southwestern Section of the Mathematics Association of America (MAA).

[1] From 1944 to 1948 he worked at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory as a Section Director, where he carried out classified research on radar antennas as well as detecting whether the Soviet Union had detonated atomic weapons.

[2] He took on administrative positions elsewhere, including becoming vice chancellor of academic affairs at University of Maryland Eastern Shore and interim president of Marygrove College (Detroit).