Professor Elmes researches self-leadership and individual development, organizational change and transformation, sensemaking in organizations, social Innovation and food systems, economic inequality, and leadership ethics. He was a co-author of 2 Best Paper awards at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting (1996 and 2005) and the lead author for a paper on social innovation and place that won the 2012 Best Paper award in the Academy of Management Learning and Education.

In 2010, Elmes cofounded and now co-directs the Wellington, New Zealand Project Center, one of a network of over 50 WPI project centers worldwide. In this role, Elmes helps to develop sponsor relationships and student projects that focus on climate change and flooding, sustainability, conservation education, human-wildlife interaction, earthquake and tsunami issues, museum studies, alternative energy innovations, and indigenous Maori concerns. In addition, Elmes founded the Nantucket Project Center on Nantucket Island in 2007 and, since his arrival at WPI in 1990, have been an active advisor at project centers across the globe.