Kristin ("Krissy") is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Covid States Project, with formal affiliations at the Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center and the Network Science Institute at Northeastern University. She is also an affiliate of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University.

Her research adopts a political psychology framework to investigate rural-urban differences in political behavior and public health, as well as vaccine-related misinformation and attitudes. Her current primary project investigates rurality as a social identity in contemporary politics: how such a rural identity is unduly confounded with the white working class, as well as its relation to populism, immigration, political participation, and health and science attitudes.

Krissy has published work in academic journals such as Political Behavior, Political Geography, Political Research Quarterly, Social Science & Medicine, the International Journal of Public Opinion Research, and the Journal of Rural Health, among others. Her research has won the Best Paper in the Health Politics and Policy section of APSA as well as the best article award at the Journal of Rural Health. Her research has also been featured in places such as Newsweek, Forbes, FiveThirtyEight, and more. She has also written journalistic pieces that have appeared in many outlets, including Time and US News and World Report. Formerly, she was a full-time Visiting Instructor of Political Science at Carleton College - ranked #1 in undergraduate teaching by US News - and received her PhD in Political Science with a minor in political psychology at the University of Minnesota. 

Many of Krissy's research interests are inspired by her childhood growing up on a corn and soybean farm in Southern Minnesota. In her free time she enjoys spending time with her husband and son, hiking, anything sci-fi/fantasy, and creating art.