John Kelley was honored by the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences for longtime work studying Arctic science. Kelley is a professor of chemical oceanography at UAF, which he joined in 1968. He received the award for advancing science in the Arctic at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Arctic Division annual meeting. He has also served as director of the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory, headquartered in Barrow. From 1989 to 1995, Kelley was director of the National Science Foundation's Polar Ice Coring Office.