Professor Kelman's research focuses on the myriad ways in which people cultivate religious commitments. His research focuses on the ways that people learn religion across domains including schools, congregations, museums, camps, media, and online. He holds a particular research focus on American Jewry.

He is the author of Shout to the Lord: Making Worship Music in Evangelical America (NYU 2018) Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio (California, 2009). He is also the editor of Is Diss a System?: A Milt Gross Comic Reader (NYU, 2010), and a co-author of Sacred Strategies: Transforming Synagogues from Functional to Visionary (Alban Institute, 2011). He is also the author of a number of articles about contemporary Jewish identity and culture, among other things.