Kelly pursued a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at UCD. After graduating in 1957, he worked in industry in Ireland and the UK from 1957 to 1963. He then returned to UCD as a lecturer, and obtained his PhD in 1968. He was a Senior Fulbright Scholar at the University of Maryland from 1969 to 1970. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer at UCD in 1976, holding that post until 1985, and during this period was elected three times as Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture. He was Visiting Professor at the University of Missouri-Rolla in 1982. In 1986, he commenced office as Registrar of UCD, and when his term of office ended, he was appointed Professor of Chemical Engineering. He became a member of the Governing Bodies of UCD and Dublin City University in 1982, remaining on the former until 1998 and the latter until 1987. He was elected by the Governing Body of UCD to the Senate of the National University of Ireland, of which UCD is a constituent university, in late 1982, and was co-opted to two further terms, and elected to another five-year term by the NUI's Convocation in 1997. He was also the founder and a director of the UCD industrial development facility, UIC, now the Nova UCD. He was made an Honorary Life Fellow of the Institution of Engineers of Ireland in 1990, and a Fellow of the Irish Academy of Engineering in 2000. Leaving the regular staff of UCD, he has been emeritus professor since 2000. Kelly was awarded the Doctorate of Humanities, Honoris Causa, by the University of Bethlehem in Palestine in 2012.
Publications
Kelly has co-authored or authored more than a hundred technical and professional articles or book chapters, and two books. He has also written letters and leader and education comment articles in the Irish Times, notably on the battle between Newman's "community of scholars" concept and vocationalism, academic pay, European student exchange and in latter times, on Palestine and Bethlehem University. He has also been editor or joint editor of multiple journals.
Other roles
Kelly led a European Community delegation to the Faculty of Engineering & Technology in the University of Jordan from 1981 to 1986, and chaired the team which assisted in the establishment of the HIAST, the Higher Institute of Advanced Science & Technology in Damascus, Syria in 1987. He sat on Ireland's National Board of Science and Technology from 1982 to 1986. He was the founding chairman of the Association for Higher Education Access and Disability, AHEAD, the Irish national organisation for students with disabilities. He has worked with many organisations including: the Universities of the Capital Cities of Europe, the European University Industry Forum, the Committee of Rectors of Europe, the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology, and Directorate-General XXII for Education of the European Union. He was a member of the IEP, the Institutional Evaluational Panel of the European University Association, from 1994 to 2006, and a member of the International Advisory Board to the Hungarian Accreditation Committee from 1998 to 2004. Kelly was the first executive director of the Ireland Canada University Foundation, the founding president of the Irish Fulbright Alumni Association, Chairman of the Irish Aid Advisory Committee in the Irish Government's Department of Foreign Affairs, and the founding executive director of the Ireland-United States Commission for Educational Exchange, one of the 50 or so Fulbright Commissions. In the late 1990s, he was invited to become a member of the Scholarship Board of the O'Reilly Foundation, a charitable trust established by billionaire media magnate Sir Anthony O'Reilly, and in 2001, he became the second chairman of that body. He is a director of Feenish Films, and was a member of the board of CHC, the Canadian Helicopter Corporation, and was also a member of the board of the Ireland Newfoundland Partnership. He chaired the international group which advised the Government of Newfoundland & Labrador on its structures of higher education in 2006. He also chaired the Dispute Resolution Committee of National University of Ireland, Cork, and until 2012 the Council of the Friends of Bethlehem University in Ireland. He is the Chairman of Element Fleet Technology Limited, the Irish branch of the Canadian company Element Fleet Management Corporation.
Personal life
Kelly lives in Dublin, and is married to Nora Doyle and has four children, three boys and one girl. A keen sportsman, Kelly was captain of the University College Dublin and the Irish Universities swimming teams in 1956 /57, played rugby in Munster with Highfield in the 1960s, was captain of the Irish Water Skiing Team at the North European Championships in Amsterdam in 1965, and is now captain of the Supervets +70 tennis team at Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club in Dublin. Kelly publicly criticised UCD for a planned failure to attend the canonisation of its founder in late 2019, and the university subsequently reversed its position.
