Professor Welsh is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and the Co-Director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict. She is also a Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General for the Responsibility to Protect.

She holds a BA from the University of Saskatchewan and a Masters and Doctorate from the University of Oxford and has been widely published. Her research projects focus on the authority of the UN Security Council, the evolution of R2P in international society, the ethics of post-conflict reconstruction and the notion of sovereignty. 

She is currently occupying a five year professorship at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.