Rate My Professor Max Kelly

Max Kelly is an Associate Professor of Humanitarianism and Development in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University, where she serves as Course Director for International and Community Development and Sustainable Development and Humanitarian Action. She is also Discipline Convenor for Development, Humanitarian and International Studies in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and Associate Director of Research and Learning at the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership. Kelly holds a PhD in International Development from Kingston University (2001), an MSc in Sustainable Development from the University of Aberdeen (1996), and a Bachelor of Agricultural Science from University College Dublin (1992). Her career includes prior roles as Senior Lecturer at Deakin University and practical experience consulting and volunteering with international NGOs, multilateral organisations, government departments, farm extension services, and local community-based organisations in global development, aid policy and practice, crisis and post-conflict contexts, emergency preparedness, response, recovery, agriculture, and food security.

Her research specializations encompass aid, development and humanitarianism, locally led crisis response, multilateralism, the political economy of aid and development, food security, sustainable and regenerative agriculture, and animal welfare in development. Current projects address crises in Ukraine, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, and Australia, examining intersections of local leadership with global geopolitical, geoeconomic contexts, systems, resources, and power structures. Key publications include authored books Foreign Aid in a World in Crisis: Shifting Geopolitics in the Neoliberal Era (Routledge, 2025, with Viktor Jakupec and John McKay), Foreign Aid in the Age of Populism: Political Economy Analysis from Washington to Beijing (Routledge, 2019, with Viktor Jakupec), and the forthcoming Reframing the Global South in an Evolving World Order: Geopolitics and Geoeconomics of the BRICS Bloc (Springer, 2026, with Viktor Jakupec and John McKay). She has edited four volumes and published journal articles such as “The sound of silence? Listening to localisation at the World Humanitarian Summit” (2024, with Maree Pardy and Mary Ana McGlasson) and “From ‘aidland’ to ‘homeland’: what the lived experiences of Ukrainian crisis leaders indicate about humanitarian response” (2025). As Editor-in-Chief of The Humanitarian Leader journal, she contributes to the field through editorial work, teaching in the Master of Humanitarianism and Development, and doctoral supervision.