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Professor of Psychology Michelle Kelley, Ph.D., an 51�鱨վ Eminent Scholar who has published over 185 refereed articles with over 12,000 citations just won a 2025 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). Dr. Kelley’s research explores mental health and substance abuse issues, particularly the impact deployment and combat have on military families. A faculty member committed to academic excellence, she is the Spring 2025 Provost’s Spotlight honoree.

In praise of Dr. Kelley and her work, Gail Dodge, Ph.D., Dean of the College of Sciences stated, “Dr. Kelley has consistently demonstrated excellence in teaching, research, and service. She is very successful at engaging students in the classroom as well as in mentoring undergraduates and graduate students in research. She is a phenomenally productive researcher in terms of funding, publications, presentations, and successful students. As a departmental citizen she is committed to service, including as a mentor to her junior colleagues. I see her as a role model, demonstrating the impact that a committed and engaged faculty member can have on their students, their colleagues, and their profession.”

On Feb. 25, Interim Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Brian Payne, Ph.D., will welcome Dr. Kelley into the Provost’s Spotlight to discuss her dedication to scholarship, teaching and life in higher education. Dean Dodge and Center for Faculty Development Director Annette Finley-Croswhite will join Dr. Kelley on stage to facilitate the conversation. The event will be held in the Cave Auditorium in the Engineering and Computational Sciences building from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. with a reception following the discussion.

Ahead of the Provost’s Spotlight, Dr. Kelley offered critical insight on her life and career.

What originally drew you to the field of psychology?

My high school psychology class first piqued my interest in psychology. In college I did a practicum at a mental hospital and was fascinated by the impact that severe childhood experiences have on later mental health. I also worked in a research lab as an undergraduate student, and that really began my interest in research.

I understand you are cited in almost every scholarly article addressing the impact of deployment and/or combat on veterans and their families and you’ve done tremendous work as well on the impact of substance abuse. What was your inspiration to explore these issues?

Thank you for the truly kind comment. When I first applied for a job at 51�鱨վ, all I knew really about Norfolk was there was a large Navy base. I wondered whether parent-child relationships were impacted by reoccurring separations throughout the military member’s career and about the possible impact that these reoccurring separations could have on family functioning and child in these homes.   

My inspiration to study substance abuse came from multiple events. I was looking at the issue of how a parent’s substance use disorder had implications for parenting and children in their homes. At that same time, I had a colleague who was examining couples therapy for substance abuse. So, when one partner had a substance use disorder, both partners entered treatment, to work on relationship communication, improve trust, and for the partner without a substance use disorder to learn how to support their partner’s sobriety. The treatment was more about learning to support one another in the process. Whether the parents’ treatment had any impact on children in their homes, was not being examined. Very broadly I wondered whether parent treatment for substance use disorder could have an indirect benefit for their children. For example, if during the couples’ treatment, the couples’ communication improved, could that also have a trickle-down effect on parent-child interactions? So hopefully reductions in parent substance use would benefit children, and maybe better communication between parents could benefit children in their homes as well. 

Also, in the case of substance use disorder, although many children who live with a parent that has substance use disorder could benefit from mental health treatment, parents with substance use disorder are reluctant to allow their children to receive any type of mental health treatment. These parents are often concerned with Child Protective Services (CPS) involvement. But if parents get treatment, this might be a way of benefitting their children without the children receiving direct treatment.

You are a prolific scholar and you’ve been awarded millions of dollars in grant funding. What strategies do you employ to be so productive? 

I’m not as strategic and productive as I would like. Trust me. Research I am passionate about has really helped me stay motivated. Also, having collaborators and students that I have enjoyed working with really helps. With respect to grants, you will eat, sleep, and breathe the grant application and the grant, so finding something you are passionate about is important. It is rare to have long stretches to write, so I’m a plodder. In the planning stages of a grant, I list everything that needs to be done and develop a very specific color-coded timeline. I meet with my team typically every two weeks and we agree to a time they can have things back to me. Even on busy days, I try and do one or two very small things, even writing one paragraph a day, and leave the more difficult tasks for days I have more time. Having regular meetings with my team—no more than two weeks apart with specific timelines—often helps tremendously.

Some of your most recent work is focused on moral injury associated with times when a person might end up doing something they find morally wrong, like killing a noncombatant. Can you elaborate on this area of research and tell us what some of your findings reveal?

Moral injury is the idea that you experience an event that shatters your personal moral and ethical expectations. For instance, the military member goes into combat but is given a direct command that they know isn’t right, but they do it anyway. If the service member is not able to resolve the incongruity between their moral code and their experiences, moral injury may develop. Although moral injury could be about feeling guilt or shame about something one has perpetrated, it could also be about witnessing something that one felt was wrong and not doing anything about it. Also, some servicemembers experience sexual harassment or assault, so moral injury could be about feeling betrayed by their peers or the organization that they felt did not do enough to prevent these actions.

As an intervention we recently taught servicemembers about moral injury and offered them simple mindfulness techniques they could use when they were stressed or feeling guilt, shame or anger from moral injury experiences. Mindfulness works to teach veterans ways of dealing with upsetting thoughts and stress. So, rather than ‘dwell’ or ruminate about a negative thought, mindfulness helps them detach somewhat from the thought. They are aware of the thought but can let it go. Like water flowing down a stream, they are not stuck in the thought. Our preliminary work shows the mindfulness program reduced moral injury symptoms, such as anger, guilt, etc., compared to an active control condition. We are hoping to get additional funding to support a larger clinical trial.     

In your SCHEV application for the Outstanding Faculty Award, you cite Plutarch as saying, “Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.” Can you elaborate on this idea and offer us some insight into your teaching strategies for student success?

My goal is in-class exercises and out-of-class assignments that help students see psychology in action and develop a passion for psychology. I try and do hands-on activities. For example, having students interview young children to see Piagetian constructs and stages of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Or I ask them to draw a picture of their “family” that sometimes shows unconscious things such as gender roles or putting their pet in the center of the picture and thus recognizing that

the pet is the center and heart of the family that brings them together. I also have my students create a short video demonstrating how adults talk with children to help children learn language. Many students will demonstrate how adults teach children language by videotaping them talking with their pets. The videos are often hilarious. 

What advice would you offer early career tenure-track faculty who have just started work at 51�鱨վ?

Set a schedule. Set aside plenty of time for your research. Remember, you need to have your own programmatic, productive line of research when you go up for tenure.  Also, consider the possibly of a collaboration. Find a collaborator who is hardworking, gets things out, and will look out for your best interests. If they are productive, it could be a possible collaboration that you could enjoy and may help increase your productivity. Before you agree to a collaboration, however, try going on a date—e.g., maybe develop a poster presentation with your potential collaborator. If that goes well, consider publishing a paper. These beginnings may be a way to increase your productivity but remember, nothing replaces your own line of research.

Try and teach the same courses each semester so that you aren’t prepping new courses continuously. 

Also, when asked to do service, (1) check your priorities, not your schedule. You can usually politely decline. (2) You don’t have to give an answer immediately. You can say, let me get back to you. (3) If you feel you are being asked to do too much service, simply say, “I would like to serve on this committee, but I have these other service committees and list them. Which of these other committees when you like me to drop off?” That puts the “burden” of saying no, back on them. 

You’ve taken on many roles: eminent scholar, teacher, department chair, mother. What are the challenges you’ve faced in your career as a woman in STEM?

Chair—I think anyone who has been chair of a large, growing department, especially one that was in transition with retirements, etc., knows how hard it is. Like many women of my age, when I first got to 51�鱨վ, I did have a male colleague who was vocal that I should not be here. I’m not sure that is specific to a woman in STEM but could be more common.

You’ve been at 51�鱨վ a very long time I think for most of your career. What do you find most compelling about 51�鱨վ? Why did you choose to stay here?

Two things: the students and the people. I feel that some students here have had fewer opportunities than the “typical” student at UVA or Virginia Tech. I have had and have many amazing students who are very willing to work hard and are very appreciative of the time, energy and opportunities that they have here at 51�鱨վ. They were and are great. The people I have met are some of the brightest, most creative, talented, caring individuals, and many are excellent teachers. I feel so appreciative to so many former and current colleagues.