Payson Center for International Development

Last Updated: 15 Sep 07

Eamon Kelly Executive Director

Eamon Michael Kelly, Executive Director of the Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer at Tulane University, was the first social scientist to be elected Chairman of the Board of the National Science Foundation. Kelly is President Emeritus of Tulane University having served as its president for seventeen years. He is the former Chairman of the Association of American Universities, comprised of the sixty leading research universities in the United States and Canada. Kelly is the original Chairman of the Satellite Working Group, which established the first nation wide private satellite system in the United States for the benefit of the Public Broadcasting Service.

Kelly was born in New York City and attended Columbia University from 1960 to 1965, where he earned the master and Ph.D. degrees in economics. Following graduation from Columbia, he joined the Penn State faculty at University Park, Pennsylvania.

In 1968, Kelly was appointed to U.S. government service by the President serving as Director of Policy Formulation with the Economic Development Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. He was later named Special Assistant to the Administrator of the Small Business Administration, where he participated in planning and initiating the federal government’s first minority economic development program. Kelly joined the Ford Foundation in 1969 and served as Officer-in-Charge for the Office of Social Development, the Foundation’s largest domestic and civil rights division. In 1975, he was named Officer-in-Charge of a $50 million social investment portfolio where, among other projects, he developed the nation’s first private domestic satellite system; a by-product of this project was the creation of the National Captioning Institute to provide closed captioning for the hard of hearing.

In 1977, Kelly served as a special consultant to the U.S. House of Representatives where he participated in drafting legislation that provided a $1.7 billion guarantee to prevent the insolvency of New York City. Later that year, he was appointed Special Assistant to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor. In that position, he successfully directed a government-wide investigation of the Teamster’s $1.4 billion Central States Pension Fund and led negotiations resulting in the Fund being transferred to private management. After leaving the Labor Department, Kelly returned, at the request of the Secretary of Labor, to direct efforts that ended a nationwide coal strike.

In 1981, he was chosen to serve as the 13th president of Tulane University. In July 1998, Kelly retired as president of the university and rejoined the faculty. During his tenure as President, he was credited with leading Tulane into an unprecedented period of growth; Tulane increased its endowment sevenfold; the quality of the faculty and student body reached new heights; and the campus underwent dramatic changes with the construction of several new buildings and the renovation of many others. Under his direction, Tulane achieved teh distinction of having the highest percentage of African-American students of any private research university in the U.S. Currently, Kelly, whose areas of specialized interest is sustainable human development holds the rank of professor in the departments of Economics, Latin American Studies, International Health and Development, Sociology, and the Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer.

Kelly is active on the boards of many professional, philanthropic, civic, and corporate organizations (see attached list). He is currently Chair of the U. S. China Center for Energy and the Environment, the Geneva based International Centre for Migration and Health (a WHO affiliate organization) and the International Foundation for Education and Self Help. In 1995, he was appointed by President Clinton to serve on the National Science Board (NSB), the governing body of the National Science Foundation. In 1998, Kelly was elected Chairman of the Board of NSF and was re-elected in 2000. His term expired in May, 2002. He was also appointed by President Clinton to the National Security Education Board, which addresses the future national security and economic competitiveness of the U. S. by increasing our national capacity to deal effectively with foreign cultures and languages through scholarships, fellowships and grants.

HONORS AND AWARDS

BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERSHIPS

FORMER BOARD AFFILIATIONS