Ellise Smith, is a native from Detroit, Michigan and attended Eastern Michigan University and received a Bachelor of Science in Health Care Administration, minor in Marketing. During her first year of graduate school she served as a Graduate Assistant in the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education for Academic and Success Projects. For her second year she is serving as the advisor for the Board of Aeons in the Office of the President for her Graduate Assistantship. What lead Ellise to a graduate program was her determination to escape generational poverty and finding a way to provide students from low-income, first-generation backgrounds like herself to find access and success within the college culture. She quickly learned that these spaces do not always hold up to their end of the deal, leaving students to find or create spaces that speaks to their experiences. As the first in her immediate family to attend a master’s program, she found flight in the space of academia and desired to share her story. She is the founder of "Fatness Fiction" and "Trap Scholar." The focus of Fatness Fiction is to dispel the myths associated around fat persons and to provide a space for them to celebrate themselves while living in color via +Plus Size Magic.  The focus of #TrapScholar is to share the stories of scholars within academia who continue to persist as they resist.