John Kelly (engineer)

John J. Kelly, PhD, is a senior Irish academic. A professor of chemical engineering, he was for a period Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at University College Dublin (UCD, where he was also Registrar / Deputy President of the College). He was Executive Director of the Ireland Canada University Foundation, President of Independent College Dublin, and Chairman of the Scholarship Board of the O'Reilly Foundation, and is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Friends of Bethlehem University in Ireland.

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 (from 1987 and 1992), 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.

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