James Tice Ellis (6 May 1956 – 28 June 2001) was a computer scientist best known as the co-creator of Usenet, along with Tom Truscott.

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Ellis grew up in Orlando, Florida. Before developing Usenet, Ellis attended Duke University. He later worked as an Internet security consultant for Sun Microsystems. He was also Manager of Technical Development at CERT. He was married and had two children when he died of lymphoma in 2001 in Harmony, Pennsylvania. He came up with the word Usenet.