Kelly uses the pronouns She/Her. As a social-design ethnographer, Kelly has an obsession with social leadership, learning as a lived experience, and story-centered codesign for the development of learning and employment innovations.
She is committed to developing ethical, entrepreneurial, and scientific thinking and creating truly caring and social cultures, leaders, and experiences. She draws on her over 20 years of experience working at the intersection of community co-design of emerging technologies and initiatives for start-ups and Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, nonprofits, schools, and universities.
Her work has been published in leading peer-reviewed academic education, technology, and business journals, such as Studies in Higher Education, Computers in Human Behavior, International Journal of Interactive Marketing, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Psychology & Marketing, Behavior & Information Technology, and Journal of Business Research. It has also been featured in the press such as The New York Times, Fast Company, Getting Smart, Wall Street Journal, Good Housekeeping, NBC, and Chicago Tribune.
Kelly has also received institutional excellence in teaching and research awards as well as the FWD Collective award for advancing women and diversity in technology and her work on Bennett Live (a project-based learning digital learning program for children ages 3-18 years) was nominated for the Eddison Innovation Award for serving over 2-million families during the global pandemic.
She received her Ph.D. in Psychology of Web (Hypermedia) Knowledge from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in 2003, obtained her first academic post at Cardiff University (UK)(2004), and held visiting positions in Europe, the UK, and the USA. She currently serves as an affiliate faculty member of the University of Colorado (UC) Denver School of Education and Human Development (SEHD) community and is a mentor with the Women Leadership Accelerator run by 1871 Chicago and MsTech.