Voronezh State University
Catriona Kelly was brought up in London. Her parents were pianist Alexander Kelly and cellist Margaret Moncrieff. Her sister is the cellist Alison Moncrieff-Kelly and she is married to neuroscientist Professor Ian Thompson. Her grandfather was Alexander Moncrieff and Hope Mirlees was her mother's first cousin. She was educated at the school in London run by the Congregation of Our Lady of Sion (1969-1970) and at Godolphin and Latymer School (1970-1977). After spending six months living in Vienna, she read Russian and German at the University of Oxford, including a year (1980-1981) as a visiting student at Voronezh State University, USSR, sponsored by the British Council. She went on to complete a doctorate on the Russian poet Innokenty Annensky at Oxford (1985).