Grace Elta was born in Flint, Michigan in 1951.  She attended the University of Michigan for both undergraduate and medical school where she obtained Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha honorary degrees.  Her residency and GI fellowship were at Tuft’s New England Medical Center in Boston.  She returned to Ann Arbor in 1982 to join the GI faculty. She was promoted to Professor in 1997 and has recently become Professor Emeritus as she retired from clinical care.  Grace’s subspecialty is interventional endoscopy and she has published multiple manuscripts and book chapters. 

Grace has been very involved in the national GI societies; she was a member of the AGA governing board in the mid 1990s and worked extensively with the ASGE where she was councilor, secretary and eventually ASGE president in 2007.  For the past 6 years she has been Chair of DDW Council. She has received numerous clinical awards including the ASGE Schindler Award and Master of the ACG in 2018, the AGA Distinguished Clinician and the ASGE Distinguished Educator in 2013, and several University of Michigan awards for outstanding clinician and lifetime achievement.