Kelly was awarded her PhD at the School of Law, University of Southampton in 2019. Her thesis explored representations of women’s lived experiences of conflict-related sexual violence in the field of transitional justice.
During her PhD studies, Kelly worked as a research assistant on a project that explored young people’s perceptions of sexual consent (2015-2017) and an impact study co-funded by the Prison Reform Trust and an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account Award titled, ‘A Helping Hand Supporting Families in the Resettlement of People Serving IPPs’ (2019).
Kelly also worked as a Seminar Leader for the Legal System and Reasoning undergraduate module from 2014-2017.
Before joining the University of Birmingham, Kelly worked as an Independent Domestic Violence Advisor supporting victim-survivors through their experiences of domestic abuse.