Ursula Kilkelly (BA, LLM, PhD, C Dir) is a professor of law in international children's rights and youth justice. She is Vice President Global Engagement at UCC.

Ursula is widely published with research that focuses on the implementation of international children's rights into practice across children's lives. Her work focuses on the various elements necessary to give rights meaning including through the adoption of legal and non legal measures.  Ursula has lectured on children’s rights and youth justice for over 25 years, at UCC and all over the world.  She has held visiting professor positions in the Netherlands, the US and China. 

Ursula combines her academic work with activism and advocacy. She founded the Child Law Clinic in University College Cork in 2010, enabling student led research to support litigation and reform and has actively supported children's rights standard setting and implementation with the Council of Europe, the European Union, the United Nations and influential human rights non-governmental organisations.  Ursula has direct experience of effecting change contributing to national law and policy, and in practice as the former Chairperson of Ireland's national detention facility for children - Oberstown Children Detention Campus - where she led major change to embed children's rights into practice. 

Ursula has supervised a number of PhDs to completion and warmly welcomes applications from students across her area of expertise.

Prof Kilkelly’s research strategy has three core elements as follows:

• Giving legal effect to international children's rights law through legal incorporation, non-legal methods of implementation and research and advocacy;
• Children's rights in youth justice and detention;
• Research in specific children's rights issues such as complaints and remedies, legal advocacy and strategic litigation. Substantive research in children's rights issues like child participation and healthcare.