Dr. Ellis obtained his doctorate in veterinary medicine from the University of Montreal in 2016. He then completed a small animal rotating internship in private practice at the DMV Center in Montreal. In 2017, he started a shelter medicine residency at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which he completed in 2020. In 2021, he received his board certification in Shelter Medicine from the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners. Dr. Ellis has authored a publication looking at the impact of a legislative ban on elective onychectomy (declawing) on shelters. He currently works as a shelter consultant, consulting on infectious disease outbreaks, capacity for care and shelter design among topics. He is also a sessional instructor at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Calgary where he teaches Principles of Shelter Medicine to 4th year veterinary students and supervises a shelter clinical rotation.