Kelly Callihan, Esq.

Kelly Callihan is the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association.

Kelly is a career prosecutor and former district attorney who has spent 28 years seeking justice for victims in both Cambria and Dauphin counties. During her career, Callihan prosecuted countless child abuse cases, felony sexual assaults and violent crimes in both juvenile and adult courts. She also spearheaded the creation of programs and task forces designed to enhance services for victims in the criminal justice system while working to build treatment courts to address offenders needs and non-profit organizations designed to enhance public safety.

Kelly served as an Assistant District Attorney in Cambria County for 14 years and District Attorney for 10 years. In 2020, she joined the Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office as a Deputy District Attorney before coming to PDAA as Counsel for Policy & External Relations in 2022.

From 2011-2019, Kelly served on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors for PDAA and PDAI and was appointed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to serve on the state Criminal Procedure Rules Committee from 2012 to 2017.  She currently serves on the Elder Justice in the Courts Advisory Council.

In her tenure as DA, she created the Cambria County Human Trafficking Response Team to raise awareness, train investigators to identify/recover victims and provide needed support; the Cambria County Drug Coalition (CCDC), a collaborative approach to better address the opioid epidemic and reduce the number of overdose deaths; the Circle of Support Child Advocacy Center to ensure the county was utilizing the recommended best
practice model for investigating child abuse and serving victims’ needs; the Cambria County Sexual Assault Response Team who trained specialized sexual assault nurse examiners and developed the first known anonymous sexual assault protocol which is now used as a national model; and the Elder Abuse Task Force.

Kelly holds a J.D. from the Dickinson School of Law (1993), and a B.S. in Health Policy & Administration with a Minor in Business from Penn State University (1993). Kelly lives in Johnstown with her husband Derrick. They have two daughters: Quinn and Molly.