Ellie DeGarmo is a senior associate with the Center for Health Policy and the Law at the O’Neill Institute.
Most recently, DeGarmo was an associate attorney in the healthcare group of the law firm, Sidley Austin LLP, in their Washington, D.C. office. There, she focused her practice on healthcare regulatory, compliance, and transactional matters. DeGarmo also maintained a robust pro bono practice, winning KIND’s “2025 Pro Bono Team of the Year Award” for her asylum work on behalf of a parent and child who were separated at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018.
Prior to joining Sidley Austin LLP, DeGarmo was a graduate student in a joint J.D./M.P.H. degree program at Georgetown University Law Center and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. While attending Georgetown, she was a student attorney in the Health Justice Alliance Law Clinic, a senior editor of the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy, and treasurer of the Health Law Society. At Johns Hopkins, DeGarmo received the “M.P.H. COVID-Related Capstone Award of Distinction for Outstanding Achievement” for her capstone, “Use of Law by US States During the COVID-19 Pandemic With Respect to People Who Were Undocumented,” which was later published in the American Journal of Public Health.
DeGarmo had several internships during her time in graduate school, including positions as a law clerk for the Health Team on the Committee on Finance in the United States Senate and a legal intern in the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to graduate school, DeGarmo spent three years working on public health research and evaluation at the New York Academy of Medicine.
DeGarmo received her J.D. from Georgetown Law, her Master’s in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University, and her A.B. from Princeton University.
