Dr. Liam Kelly founded Nualight in 2004. His previous commercial LED activities include the establishment of CorkOpt Ltd. in 1994, to develop and manufacture LED-based luminaires for the machine vision industry. CorkOpt was acquired by USA-based StockerYale Inc. in 2000 and Liam continued as Managing Director until 2003. He was also a founder-director of Millimetre Wave Technology Ltd., and of Farran Technology Ltd, an imaging and communications systems manufacturer, until its acquisition by the Smiths Group plc in 2005.

Prior to his commercial interests, Liam spent twenty years in various senior roles in University College Cork including Associate Professor of Microelectronics. He has a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California, a founding director of Optronics-Ireland, and is a founding director of the Irish National Microelectronic Research Centre.