Ellen D.B. Riggle is Professor of Political Science and Gender and Women's Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Riggle's research interests include positive identity, health disparities for LGBTQ people, the effects of minority stress on the well-being of LGBTQ individuals and couples, and the impact of law, legal debates, and policy issues on LGBTQ individuals and couples.

Dr. Riggle received a B.A. from Purdue University and A.M. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Dr. Riggle is the recipient of the 2017 William B. Sturgill Award for "outstanding contributions to graduate education" from the Graduate School of the University of Kentucky, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (Division 44); the 2019 Scholar-in-Residence at the Center for Law, Society, and Culture at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law; and the 2025 Albert D. and Elizabeth H. Kirwan Memorial Prize from the University of Kentucky Graduate School (for outstanding contributions to original research or creative scholarship). Dr. Riggle's primary teaching and research fields include LGBTQ studies and queer theory, legal and policy studies, political psychology, and qualitative methodology.

Professor Riggle's articles have appeared in leading professional journals, including the American Journal of Political Science, Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, Journal of Social Issues, Journal of Counseling Psychology, Professional Psychology, Psychology & Sexuality, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, Journal of Family Psychology, Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, and American Journal of Orthopsychiatry.

Dr. Riggle is co-author of A Positive View of LGBTQ: Embracing Identity and Cultivating Well-Being (with S. Rostosky; Rowman & Littlefield, 2012).  A Positive View of LGBTQ received the Distinguished Book Award for 2012 from Division 44 of the American Psychological Association.  Happy Together: Thriving as a Same-Sex Couple in Your Family, Workplace, and Community (with S. Rostosky) was published by the American Psychological Association LifeTools Series in 2015.  Dr. Riggle is co-editor (with Alan Ellis) of Sexual Identity in the Workplace: Issues and Services (Harrington Press, 1996) and (with Barry Tadlock) Gays and Lesbians in the Democratic Process: Public Policy, Political Representation and Public Opinion (Power, Conflict and Democracy: American Politics into the Twenty-First Century series, Columbia University Press, 1999). 

Dr. Riggle is also a prize-winning poet and essayist, and Executive Producer of the short documentary: “Becoming Myself: Positive Trans & Nonbinary Identities."