Barbara Kelly

Barbara (“Barb”) Frances Kelly (January 24, 1968 - December 14, 2022) was an Australian linguist. Kelly's research interests spanned the subfields of language documentation, cognitive linguistics and first language acquisition.

Career Kelly attended Rusden teacher's college and Latrobe University before receiving her doctorate degree in linguistics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Kelly later worked at Stanford University and Lexicon Branding. In 2004, she became a lecturer in the Linguistics Department at the University of Melbourne. At the time of her death, Kelly was associate professor in sociolinguistics at the University of Melbourne.

While a PhD student, Kelly conducted fieldwork in Nepal on the Sherpa language.

A symposium was held in Kelly's honor in 2023.

Selected publications