Professor James B. Ellsworth entered full-time federal service with the U.S. Army Armor School at Fort Knox, Kentucky in 1989. He was branch-transferred to Military Intelligence in 1991, graduated with distinction from the Military Intelligence Officer Advanced Course in 1995, and served in a variety of assignments in Intelligence education and training before appointment to the faculty of the Naval War College's College of Distance Education in 2000.
Dr. Ellsworth is a Certified Performance Technologist (C.P.T.), holds a Ph.D. in Instructional Design, Development & Evaluation from Syracuse University, and graduated with highest distinction from the U.S. Naval War College's College of Naval Warfare in 2003. His specialties include Military Intelligence, Information Operations, Distance Learning, Organizational Change & Innovation, and Educational Assessment & Evaluation, and he teaches the resident electives on Critical Thinking and the Future of Armed Conflict.
Dr. Ellsworth's book, Surviving Change: A Survey of Educational Change Models, was published in 2000 by the U.S. Department of Education and can be downloaded from the ERIC database. His other notable publications explore intelligence support to emerging warfighting concepts, organizing for stability & support operations, and defining effective objectives.
Dr. Ellsworth is currently working with the U.S. Army on its new family of functional concepts, and with the Intelligence Community on design of a professional development architecture for mid-to-senior level professionals across the joint intelligence force. He also serves as co-chair of a scholarly body working with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to integrate the Performance Improvement model into the coordination of development programs.
Dr. Ellsworth serves as the Senior Intelligence Officer (SIO) for the Army's Military Intelligence Corps Association (MICA) in New England, and directs the MICA Professional Writing Program. He is a Lifetime Fellow of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces & Society. A two-term member of the Board of Directors of the Association for Educational Communications & Technology (AECT) and Past-president of the Armed Forces Chapter of the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), he now serves as a Trustee of the Educational Communications and Technology Foundation. He is listed in both Who's Who in America and Who's Who in American Education.