About Kristen
I grew up in Grand Haven, Michigan, the daughter of a public school superintendent. Growing up in a household that believed deeply in public education shaped who I am and what I care about.
I went on to study Government at Cornell University, where I became fascinated by how democratic institutions work, and what happens when they don't. In the summer of 1991, I was studying abroad in Moscow when the Soviet coup attempt happened. I watched tanks roll through the streets and saw firsthand how quickly things can unravel. I returned to Moscow after graduation, working there from fall 1992 through spring 1993, and then on a Rotary Foundation scholarship studying at Moscow State University in 1993-1994,
including when the second coup attempt occurred that fall.
Those years abroad led to work in democracy and institution building across Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and Georgia, and later to my work helping eliminate former Soviet nuclear weapons in Ukraine. In 2001 I started my PhD in Government at Georgetown University.
In 2010 my husband, Joel, and I moved back to Michigan to raise our family in the community we loved. Since nuclear elimination work is hard to come by in West Michigan, I did what a lot of people do: I got involved in the schools. I was a substitute teacher, coached Odyssey of the Mind for over a decade, and in 2020 ran for the Forest Hills Board of Education. I've served for six years, four as president.
Those six years have been anything but quiet. When extremists showed up at our board meetings trying to ban books from our school library, silence our LGBTQ+ students, and intimidate kids for following health guidelines, I held the line every time. I also led a $340 million bond to renovate our schools and build community facilities, launched a Junior Kindergarten program to support working families, and worked to build genuine relationships with our educators and union so that everyone who works in our schools feels heard and valued.
The same forces that showed up at our board meetings are now working through Lansing to impose their agenda on our schools, our families, and our communities. District 80 deserves a representative who has already faced them down and knows how to win.
I live in Cascade with Joel, and we're apprehensively anticipating being empty nesters this fall.