Thanks to Brian in STL for sending in this FoxTrot Classics:
Brian sez, “Foxtrot dailies are in reruns on GoComics. Today’s is an okay joke on its own. … However, it’s not fully appreciated without —-” But we’re going to “leave you in suspenders” for a moment or two and invite readers to treat this as a CIDU-puzzle requiring the reference to something it was based on. (Which you can read by expanding the block below.))
SPOILER — The backstory of the reference!
“However, it’s not fully appreciated without this Apple commercial that ran around the same time as the original run of the strip:”
Brian continues “The person that provided the link in comments added this: ‘Her side of the story goes that it was late at night when they filmed the ad. It had to be done after school hours for the day. Add to that, she was on allergy medication, which made her a bit “under the influence”.‘ “
Comics I Don't Understand 
Nope, no idea.
(Until I googled the name, that is.)
I didn’t find anything directly for Ellen Feiss in Wikipedia, but there was a page for Apple’s “Switch” ad campaign, which did mention her.
As deety did, I preferred a general google search. The recent results include a Ph.D. from Berkeley, a postdoc at OSU, and an Ass.Prof. appointment at Providence College as of Sept. 2023. (Matching by picture, not just name.) So apparently her academic progress was not too much damaged by the incident of the PC eating a draft of her HS paper!
Sometimes GoComics comments are useful and interesting. And on the whole, much more so than YouTube ones. This was certainly of this category. I was amazed to find that she was such a “meme” in the day. I don’t recall the ad at all.
There are a few other videos of her related to her career, in which she is listed as E. C. Feiss. Possibly in an attempt to thwart fanboys.
I’m fairly certain I never saw the original ad in the wild, but I do remember finding it in reference to this strip at some point between its original run and yesterday.