Rabbanit Dr. Tirza Y. Kelman practices and researches Jewish law. She is a research fellow at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and a lecturer at Talpiot College of Education. Previously she was a research fellow at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, a post-doctoral fellow at the Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg, and a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for the Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters at Ben-Gurion University. Her research covers the intersections between the study of Jewish law, history, the history of ideas and legal theory, focusing on halachic literature that originated from the Ottoman Empire in the beginning of modernity, and more specifically on the writings of R. Joseph Karo. In her religious capacity she regularly addresses ‎halachic inquiries as a Yoetzet Halakha, a female Orthodox halachic authority, and has served as director of Nishmat's "Women’s Health & Halacha" website since 2007. She has also taught at various religious institutions, among them the Ezra Youth Movement's "Dracheha" educational institute. Over the past twenty years she has been active in multiple contexts in the public sphere, serving, inter alia, as a member of the general assembly at the religious Zionist women's organization Emunah.