Research

Digital Cultural Heritage

Kelly’s latest research is in Digital Cultural Heritage, utilising 3D laser scanning of heritage environments and buildings in South East Queensland. She has been working with researchers from ATCH, School of Architecture, CSIRO and site managers at Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service to scan and archive fragile, remote and at risk sites, and research the use of scanning in architectural heritage practice. She has been instrumental in gaining funding, and organising laser scanning of Queensland heritage sites for their digital archiving onto the global digital cultural heritage repository CyArk. This included Australia’s first site on CyArk, Fort Lytton, ahead of Sydney’s Opera House. In 2015 Kelly and colleagues will scan three further sites for inclusion in the prestigious CyArk500 mission to scan and archive 500 of the world’s most precious and vulnerable heritage sites.

Anthropology

Kelly holds a PhD in anthropology entitled ‘It gets under your skin’: Place meaning, attachment, Identity and sovereignty in the urban Indigenous community of Inala, Queensland, Australia, awarded in 2013. Kelly’s research into the intercultural place heritage of the Brisbane region, and the urban cultural history of Brisbane’s suburbs is combined with a continued interest in how cultures and built environments interact.

With colleagues from AERC she has also conducted research into Aboriginal housing, particularly with respect to crowding and homelessness. Kelly’s research has been supported by grants from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), the Queensland Government, the Australian Federal Government and the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI).