BEng (Hons) CEng MIStructE
DIRECTOR, ESG Impact Strategy, UK

As she says, “We need to decarbonise. Now is the time to make a difference and bring new perspectives to drive real change.”

Her skills in fostering strong team and client relationships underpin 18 years’ experience developing detailed design for projects in the residential, commercial, education and cultural sectors — from large-scale housing projects and industrial building conversions, basements and extensions to special structures such as sinuous timber staircases and bespoke private residences.

Kelly excels in the design of timber, steel and hybrid structures, refurbishment and retrofitting, adaptations, extensions, basements, and working in heritage contexts. She is a Member of the Board of Timber Development UK (TDUK) and sits on the Supply Chain Decarbonisation Task Group of the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC).

She led the development of the Optoppen interactive web app, a Built by Nature-funded consortium of UK and European partners headed by Whitby Wood. Optoppen — Dutch for ‘topping up’ — refers to increasing the floor area of existing buildings by adding lightweight, vertical, low-carbon roof extensions using timber and other bio-materials. Kelly says the Optoppen solution is “win, win, win” as it creates “the most space possible with the buildings we already have, with the most readily-available, resource-efficient materials.”

Other notable projects include the award-winning Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation at the University of Arkansas, USA, showcasing the versatility of mass timber construction, along with a range of UK projects — and Zodiac conversion of long-disused 1960s offices into emergency housing, Sackville House 1930s Grade II listed refurbishment and vertical extension in lightweight steel/timber hybrid, Colmore Row retrofit 1917 heritage building for high-quality sustainable office space, and Escapade Silverstone residential development at Silverstone racing circuit, featuring complex cantilevered steel frames and sustainable urban drainage.

Kelly was named in the Top 50 Women in Engineering: Sustainability list by the Women’s Engineering Society (2020). She is a trustee for Steel Warriors — repurposing confiscated knives into calisthenic equipment for public spaces, and creating training and employment opportunities for young people.

She wrote Chapter 10 ‘Refurbished Structures’ in Cross Laminated Timber: A design stage primer (RIBA 2021). As part of her work with TDUK and BbN (UK-based better business network) she has contributed to the production of the Fire Safety, Wood in Construction website for Swedish Wood and she was involved in reviewing, testing and promoting the mass timber insurance playbook. She also features in the children’s book Sitka Spruce the Amazing Timber Tree by Jenny Bailey.

Kelly is partnering with UK FIRES and the University of Bath, setting a PhD question ‘What can we build from the zero carbon resource pool?’, and guiding the process. She also lectures at the universities of Cambridge, Bath and London Kingston. She has chaired timber conferences and sessions in the UK, Europe and USA (2022-2025), and sustainable engineering at industry events. She judged the inaugural StuCAN competition (2025) for a ‘regenerative, reciprocal and mobile headquarters for student climate action.’

Anthony Timberlands Center, University of Arkansas, USA
competition-winning design for an applied timber research centre
Optoppen Project (optoppen.org), UK and Europe
web platform showing the densification potential of lightweight vertical extensions
Timber Beacon, Glasgow, Scotland, UK
demountable pavilion designed for COP26 (unrealised)
Zodiac, Croydon, London, UK
adaptation and refurbishment of striking 1960s complex
The Phoenix, Lewes, East Sussex, UK
executive engineering for a new sustainable neighbourhood
Sackville House, Piccadilly, London, UK
refurbishment and vertical extension of two 1930s central London buildings
61-78 Newman Street, London, UK
vertical extension to 1960s office building