Kirsten was an English teaching volunteer in Kaohsiung, Taiwan from 1986-87, during a break in her undergraduate studies at Stanford University (Anthropology). She then earned an MHS in Maternal and Child Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Kirsten has spent the majority of her career at the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, where she is able to combine her penchant for theory with practical applications. She has worked extensively throughout the African continent and in Asia. Previously, she lived in Malawi and Tanzania for six years when she was Chief of Party for USAID funded programs. She was Deputy Director of K4Health (a global knowledge management project), and Director of the Health Communication Capacity Collaborative (HC3), USAID’s global flagship social and behavior change program from 2013-2018. Her current interests focus on tapping the power of new technologies and human centered design approaches to inspire innovation and strengthen the capacity of program implementers, especially at the community level. Kirsten joined the VIA Board in 2023.