Dr Pat Kelly was appointed Executive Director of CONNECT in June 2020.

A physicist, Pat Kelly graduated from Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin, with a B.A. (Mod.) in experimental physics in 1986, and a PhD in Physics in 1992. He worked for ten years at NMRC (now Tyndall National Institute), University College Cork, where he became Group Director – Photonics in 1999.

He was Founding Director and Chief Technology Officer of Optical Metrology Innovations Ltd from 2002 to 2007. He worked as a Commercialisation Executive at the National University of Ireland, Galway, Ignite Technology Transfer Office from 2007 to 2011, before joining Adelaide Research & Innovation Pty Ltd, Australia, as Deputy Director from 2011 to 2013.

Most recently, from 2014 to 2020, he was the Research, Development and Innovation Director at ROBUS Lighting (LED Group) in Dublin, Ireland.  At ROBUS he was the company’s technology pathfinder, introducing Driver-On-Board technology and leading the development of Human Centric Lighting and related tunable lighting and smart wireless/IoT controls. He is a named inventor on seven patents, author of some 60 academic and conference papers, and is also a self-published travel author.