Max Kelly

Max Kelly is an Associate Professor at Deakin University, Australia. She is Associate Director of Research and Learning at the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership, and Discipline Convenor for Development, Humanitarian and International Studies in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. She brings a range of practical experience from global development, aid policy and practice, crisis and post conflict contexts, emergency preparedness, response and recovery, and sector specific experience in agriculture and food security.

Her research is primarily concerned with the experience of those at the forefront of crisis, disaster and humanitarian contexts, and intersections with national and global policy, systems, resources and power structures. Current research includes a twin focus on global geopolitical and geoeconomic contexts for aid and development, and local leadership of humanitarian, disaster and crisis contexts, recently focusing on Sudan, Ukraine, Syria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as local experiences of Australian disaster contexts.