Professor Douglas Kelley is a prolific writer and researcher in the field of forgiveness. His particular expertise lies with the communication of forgiveness, personal relationships, intimacy and marital communication. He is a Professor of Communication Studies in the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and Lincoln Professor of Applied Ethics at Arizona State University.

Professor Kelley’s 1998 study, ‘The Communication of Forgiveness,’ remains a highly influential treatise on the nature and practice of forgiveness. His books include Communicating Forgiveness and A Communicative Approach to Conflict, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation: Reimagining Our Relationships, both written in collaboration with his research partner, Professor Vincent Waldron. His latest book, as sole author, is Intimate Spaces: A Conversation About Discovery and Connection, which explores the relationship between intimacy and forgiveness.

His work is published regularly across many peer-reviewed scientific journals, and he received the Bernard Brommel Award in 2017. In 2019 he gave a TED Talk, Experiencing Intimate space: Six Ways People Experience Intimacy.