After more than a decade teaching seventh through twelfth grade English in independent schools in Texas and Michigan, Catherine Ross earned a Ph.D. in English at the University of Texas at Austin in 1998.  At UT Austin she served as one of the first Assistant Directors of the Division of Rhetoric and Composition and won UT Austin’s Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award for her study of the relationships between people of science and letters in the long eighteenth century.  This research launched her interest in interdisciplinary studies, Romantic polymathy, and the historical effects of curricula and pedagogy upon writers and other public figures.

Dr. Ross has published on Wordsworth, Coleridge, Robert Browning, and the educational prose of the Romantic Period. Her combined interest in teaching and research culminated in 2023 with her book Educating the Romantic Poets: Life and Learning in the Anglo-Classical Academy 1770-1850, published by Liverpool University Press. She is presently at work on a study of how British women writers were educated in the 18th  and 19th centuries.

Since 1998, Dr. Ross has been part of the faculty at the University of Texas at Tyler (UTT), where she teaches British Literature. Dr. Ross has served as president of the UTT Faculty Senate and president of the UT System Academy of Distinguished Teachers. She is a regular contributor to new faculty orientation and mentoring efforts.