John Kelly, PhD, is an Irish professor of engineering. He was formerly Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at, University College Dublin (UCD, where he was also Registrar of the College. He is now Executive Director of the Ireland Canada University Foundation and Chairman of the Scholarship Board of the O'Reilly Foundation and of the Council of the Friends of Bethlehem University in Ireland.
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He pursued a bachelors 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.
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 (from 1987 and 1992), and elected to another five-year term by the NUI's Convocation in 1997. He was also director of a UCD industrial development facility.
In 1986, he commenced office as Registrar of UCD, and when his term of office ended, he was appointed Professor of Chemical Engineering. 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 has co-authored or authored more than a hundred technical and profesional articles or book chapters, and one book. He has also written letters and leader and education comment articles in the Irish Times,[1] notably on the battle between Newman's "community of scholars" concept and vocationalism, European student exchange and in latter times, pay for academic leaders and Bethlehem University. He has also been editor or joint editor of multiple journals.
Kelly led a European Community delegation to the Engineering Faculty of the University of Jordan from 1981 to 1986, and sat on Ireland's National Board of Science and Technology ' from 1982 to 1986. He helped found and since chairs the Irish organisation, the Association for Higher Education Access and Disability (AHEAD).
He has worked with many organizations: 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 XXIII of the European Union.
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, and the founding executive director of the Ireland-United States Commission for Educational Exchange, ("the Irish Fulbright Commission"), one of the 50 or so Fulbright Commissions.[2]
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 billionnaire media magnate Tony O'Reilly, and in 2001, he became the second Chairman of that body.
He is a member of the board of CHC Helicopter Corporation, and was a member of the board of the Ireland Newfoundland Partnership. He also chairs the Dispute Resolution Committee of National University of Ireland, Cork, and the Council of the Friends of Bethlehem University in Ireland.