Ellen Nyman is a trained actress and has a practice in theater, film, and television, in both Denmark and Sweden. Ellen is a PhD candidate at Stockholm University of the Arts, in the Acting Department with a focus on how black actors in Sweden and Denmark create strategies to navigate within the white gaze, a perspective that surrounds cultural institutions, aesthetic norms and the audience in a historical and national context. The aim is to shed light on the interplay between the conscious work with the body as a symbolic tool and the site-specific influence on how race / ethnicity is constructed.

Nyman was a member of the Danish Arts Council 2007-2011 and returned to Stockholm in 2011. From 2016-18 she was an expert at the Nordic Culture Fund and at the moment, she is a member of the board of the Swedish Arts Council.