Kelly Walsh

Kelly is a Bay Area native and started her career in high tech after obtaining her BA in Psychology from UCLA. She held various customer service and marketing roles in several tech companies, before shifting gears and returning to school to obtain her MA in Counseling with an emphasis in Career Development from Santa Clara University. She worked as a career advisor in the Career Management Center at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford and in a similar role at Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business. She also worked as a Women in Management facilitator at the GSB for ten years, and loved keeping a pulse on what's important to the MBA women.  Kelly is passionate about higher education and supporting students in maximizing their academic experience and then keeping in touch with students as alumni. In her spare time, Kelly enjoys playing tennis, open water swimming and following UCLA sports.  She also loves to make sourdough bread, bake cookies and write poems for her graduate students. She lives locally with her husband and has two grown children. 

In June 2025, Kelly was honored to receive the Dean's Award of Merit. Presented annually by the School of Humanities and Sciences, the award recognizes staff members whose outstanding contributions have made a meaningful impact on their local unit as well as the school and university.