Skip to main content.

John J. Kelly, Ph.D.

John J. Kelly III, Ph.D. is founder & President of Model Software Corporation. Model Software is currently launching a new software technology that automates industrial process monitoring & diagnosis by exploiting process math models. Process monitoring, for industrial uses, will now for the first time be reliable, comprehensive, and economic.

Before starting Model Software Corporation, he led the artificial intelligence group at Martin Marietta Manned Space Systems where he directed corporate sponsored R&D into AI and NASA-sponsored AI. He had previously worked as a senior aerospace engineer in the advanced programs group and on the NASA space shuttle program where he received a NASA Certificate of Appreciation for his contribution to establishing that the External Tank was not the root cause of the Challenger disaster, and determining the root cause of the misleading data.

Dr. Kelly took Science courses at Harvard University during the Summer between his Junior and Senior years of high school. He ended up spending much of that Summer on a university computer, a DEC PDP-11, learning to program from his fellow Summer students, resulting in a life-long fascination with computing. During his senior year of high school, this fascination with computing led to his taking two computer science courses at UNO (University of New Orleans), totaling four college courses before graduating from High School.

Dr. Kelly has a B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Notre Dame. After college, he was initially working as an aerospace engineer, developing Fortran simulations (implementing math models in software) of space shuttle components on the pad and in flight in support of shuttle engineering design. To enhance his engineering knowledge, he took some engineering courses in the evenings at UNO.

He has an M.E. in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Computer Science, both from Tulane.

He is the 2003 recipient of the Harold A. Levey Award for Outstanding Professional Achievement from the Tulane School of Engineering .

He is the President of the New Orleans Navy League . He is the founder and Captain of the Krewe of Lafcadio .

He has served on the board of directors of the Louisiana Technology Council (LTC), as well as on the board of the Louisiana Angel Network, the Southeast Louisiana chapter of Infragard, on the Jesuit High School President's Advisory Board, and has represented the Tulane School of Science and Engineering on the Tulane Alumni Advisory Board . He serves on the organizing committee for the annual Tulane Engineering Forum.

Selected publications: