Elly is a native of Portland, Oregon. She graduated from Reed College in 2004, with her senior thesis focused on the manganese transport regulator, MntR, from Bacillus subtilis. She received her MD from the University of Illinois College of Medicine in 2005 and completed residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Pulmonary & Critical Care at OHSU. Elly was appointed to the Pulmonary and Critical Care Division’s T32 training grant during her fellowship, allowing her to pursue basic science research. She joined the Lewinsohn Lab in 2014 where she studied endosomal trafficking proteins and how they affect MR1-dependent presentation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). Elly joined the faculty at OHSU in 2016 and in 2017, she won the Rising Star Award for the PI-TB Assembly (formerly MTPI) of the American Thoracic Society. She joined the Portland VA Health Care System in 2018 where she works as a Pulmonary & Critical Care physician. In 2020, Elly received an NIH R21 and then an NIH K08 to continue her research on MR1. Her clinical interests include non-CF bronchiectasis and nontuberculous mycobacterial infections.