Kelly McCay entered the PhD program in 2018. She studies the history of linguistic thought in Early Modern Europe, with particular emphasis on the ways written language was influenced and expressed through print and written media. Her research explores creative language projects undertaken in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, in particular the art of shorthand. Her dissertation focuses on the proliferation, production, pedagogical infrastructure, and linguistic structure of early modern shorthand, and includes a descriptive bibliography of shorthand manuals printed between 1588 and 1700. Her research has been supported in part by library fellowships from the Beinecke Library, the Newberry Library, the Huntington Library, and the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Kelly completed her MPhil in Early Modern History (with distinction) at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, where she was Pelling Scholar. She graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University as an Independent Concentrator in Linguistics with a certificate in Russian Language and Culture. Her undergraduate thesis explored the presentation and underlying grammatical theory of grammar books of a variety of languages (European, Amerindian, and constructed), and was awarded the inaugural Thesis Prize for Linguistics.