Dr. Michelle P. Kelly
President
Dr. Michelle P. Kelly is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D) and a Chartered Psychologist of the Psychological Society of Ireland (C. Psychol., Ps.S.I.) She obtained her Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) diploma in Melbourne, Australia and taught neurotypical children, teenagers and adults in Seoul, South Korea, Tanzania, East Africa, and Barcelona, Spain before working with individuals with autism spectrum disorder in Dublin, Ireland. Dr. Kelly moved to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia the day after submitting her PhD thesis in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) at the National University of Ireland, Galway in 2012 and has lived in the Middle East ever since. She is currently an Associate Professor and Program Coordinator for the ABA Master of Education and Postgraduate Diploma in the Counseling, Special Education and Neuroscience division at Emirates College for Advanced Education (ECAE) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. In 2015, she registered ECAE as an approved continuing education (ACE) provider with the Behavior Analyst Certification Board and has served as the ACE coordinator since then providing regular professional development opportunities to behavior analysts. Dr. Kelly co-founded and serves as the current President of the Association for Behavior Analysis- United Arab Emirates (ABA-UAE), an affiliated chapter of the Association for Behavior Analysis International, registered with the Dubai Association Center. She is an active researcher who publishes in top ranking, peer-reviewed journals and has an ongoing, strong commitment to community outreach. She founded and runs two very active Facebook groups, ABA Ireland and ABA Middle East which together have over 15,000 members. Dr. Kelly chaired the taskforce that developed the Professional Standards for ABA, time allocation for Applied Behavior Analysts (ABAs), and Professional Development Framework for ABAs in the UAE. She has been awarded an International Development Grant by the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis and an International Dissemination Grant from the Dissemination of Behavior Analysis- Special Interest Group.
