Carolyn Kelley

Carolyn Kelley is the Jim and Georgia Thompson Distinguished Professor of Education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Kelley’s research focuses on policy and organizational factors influencing strategic human resources management in schools, including teacher compensation, principal and teacher evaluation, and leadership development. She is currently conducting research on equity-centered principal leadership. She is co-developer of the Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning, a formative assessment of distributed instructional leadership in schools. Dr. Kelley has a Ph.D. in Administration and Policy Analysis from the Stanford University School of Education (1993), a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from the University of Michigan (1985), and a B.S. in Journalism from the University of Illinois (1982). She is the former Senior Associate Dean for Academic Programs (2016-2021) and has been a member of the School of Education faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 1993.