Kristan joined the Steve Hicks School as a Grants & Contracts Specialist in 2021. She also serves as the Development Liaison for the school’s Office of the Associate Dean for Research.

Kristan earned her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in English at Texas Tech University, with specializations in comparative literature and book history. She has published archival research in 18th– and 19th-century British literature and presented papers exploring Victorian literature, film adaptation, and bibliography at conferences held by several groups, including the College English Association and University of Iowa’s Center for the Book. She’s also taught courses in rhetoric and composition, literature, and film at Texas Tech University while pursuing her MA and at the University of Missouri – Columbia while pursuing a PhD. After completing coursework for a PhD, she set her sights on non-profit development to use her skills and passion for the humanities more broadly in the mid-Missouri community.

She then shifted her efforts to non-profit development while in Columbia, Missouri, and had the opportunity to work with teams responsible for raising over $10 million in funds devoted to human services such as hunger relief, healthcare access, and youth mentoring in mid-Missouri prior to returning to Texas.