In 2007 Ellsworth was nominated for a United States Artists Fellowship which is supported by the Ford, Rockefeller, Prudential, and Rasmuson Foundations. She received a 2007 Arizona Commission on the Arts Project Grant and in 2002 an ACA Visual and Media Arts Fellowship. She has been nominated for a 2003 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award and received a 2001 Surdna Art Teachers Fellowship from the Surdna Foundation. She has also received a Contemporary Forum Materials Grant from the Phoenix Art Museum, New Forms Regional Initiative Grant from DiverseWorks and Mexi-Arte, Art Matters, Inc. Fellowship, New Jersey State Council on the Arts Visual Arts Fellowship, and a New Forms Regional Grant from The Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia.