Dr. Elish Kelly is a Senior Research Officer at the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) in Dublin, Ireland.

She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin. Elish obtained her PhD in Economics from Trinity College Dublin in 2005.

Her main area of research is labour economics, with a particular focus on unemployment and active labour market programmes, migration, and wages and pay bargaining institutions. She has also undertaken research on equality and education issues, such as the gender pay gap and the returns to education, along with participation in sport and physical activity, and player welfare among amateur sport athletes.
Her work has been published in peer reviewed journals, such as the European Journal of Population, European Journal of Industrial Relations, Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Economics of Education Review, Historical Methods and The Economic and Social Review, as well as in other ESRI publications.

Elish Kelly joined IZA as a research fellow in January 2020.