Previously Professor Kerry Kennedy was Dean of the Faculty of Education and Human Development, Associate Vice-President (Quality Assurance),  and Research Chair Professor of Curriculum Studies. Before joining the University (the then Hong Kong Institute of Education), he was Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at the University of Canberra. He did his undergraduate studies and initial professional education at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. He has a Master of Education degree from the University of New South Wales and a Master of Letters degree in History from the University of New England. He completed an MA and PhD at Stanford University.

His research interests are in curriculum policy and theory with a special interest in citizenship education. He has won research grants from the Australian Research Council and the Hong Kong Research Grants Council. He has published Changing Schools for Changing Times - New Directions for the School Curriculum in Hong Kong (Chinese University Press, 2005) that has now been translated into Chinese (解讀香港教育：香港學校課程的新趨勢 - Chinese University Press, 2011). He co-authored (with Professor John Lee) Changing Schools in Asia: Schools for the Knowledge Society (Routledge, 2010). He has recently Co-edited (with Dr Gregory Fairbrother and Professor Zhao Zhenzhou) Chinese Citizenship Education: Preparing Citizens for the "Chinese Century" (Routledge, 2014). The 5th Edition of his co-authored book with Laurie Brady, Curriculum Construction, has been recently published (Pearson Education, 2014).

He is the Series Editor of the Routledge Series on Schools and Schooling in Asia as well as the Asia-Europe Education Dialogue Series. He is Co-Editor of the Springer Series on Governance and Citizenship in Asia andis Editor of Curriculum Perspectives, the journal of the Australian Curriculum Studies Association. He was the Co-Winner of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement’s Richard M. Wolf Memorial Award for 2012.