Kelly was late diagnosed autistic and ADHD at the age of 23 following a 13-year battle with services and five misdiagnoses which resulted in devastating consequences. She has dedicated her life since to fighting for neurodivergent rights and challenging misconceptions around disability.

Kelly represented National Alliance of Women’s organisations (NAWO) at the UN Commission on the Status of Women and graduated last year from an international internship working on the UN sustainable development goals. This year, she will be attending a United Nations Sustainable Development Group (UNSDG) innovation lab in New York. From consulting on UN policy to working on mass vaccination, she has been unrelenting in her devotion to influence structural change.

In her full-time job, Kelly works in equality, diversity and inclusion for the mass vaccination programme. She is Chair of the disabled employee network where she has worked on re-writing mandatory equality and diversity training for NHS staff, the roll out of free period products and is re-writing the reasonable adjustments policy to better cater for the disabled NHS workforce. Kelly is also currently working with Scotland’s major nursing universities to establish a reasonable adjustments policy and resources to ensure better access to the nursing profession for neurodivergent students. Kelly is also on a working group advising Network Rail on transport accessibility for women and disabled passengers and designed an NHS myth-busting campaign for autism acceptance month. Kelly recently filmed a documentary with the Royal Holloway University of London on living with disability during COVID-19 and is a regular panellist on current affairs programme BBC Seven Days.