Jolliffe earned her doctorate in Journalism and Mass Communication from Ohio University, her master's degree at Ohio State University and her bachelor's degree from Lindenwood College.

Lee Jolliffe joined the magazine sequence at Drake University in 1995. Jolliffe teaches courses in visual communications, and media-related courses for the Honors program.

She has written numerous papers, book chapters and scholarly articles for American Periodicals, Journalism Quarterly, Journalism History, ETC: The Journal of General Semantics and other communication journals. Her current major project is The American Magazine: A Researcher's Bibliography, a 7,500+ entry database and book.