As Equalize Health’s founder, Krista established the organization, led Equalize Health’s direction and vision, and ensured that Equalize Health impacts the health and well-being of everyone we serve.
Her leadership has won acclaim as one of Fast Company’s Co.Design 50 Designers Shaping the Future, a TED speaker, and a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer. Krista is TED Speaker, an Elevate Prize winner, a Rainer Arnhold Fellow, GLG Fellow, and a Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow. She has been featured in the New York Times, Wired, Fortune, NPR, The New Indian Express, BBC, The Straits Times, and several books.
Krista has driven innovation in product design, engineering, and social impact for more than 20 years, publishing widely. She holds degrees from Vanderbilt and Stanford Universities (USA) in mechanical engineering and product design, and her doctoral work was among the first to focus on engineering and social entrepreneurship in less industrialized regions.
Krista started Equalize Health because believes that people - patients, families, and healthcare workers - should have a central voice in developing solutions to create health equity. She also was one of the earliest advocates of leveraging the market for scaling global health innovations, creating commercial partnerships with medtech companies to deliver to underserved markets, and following products and services (iterating often!) through their life cycles to ensure that they create impact where they are most needed. Her greatest joy is learning from others, whether it’s the nurse creatively fixing a device at a hospital on the outskirts of Addis Ababa or an Asha providing support for pregnant women in Uttar Pradesh.
Prior to Equalize Health, Krista was an Economic Officer in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs/Iraq as American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow. She also worked as a design engineer for KickStart International in Nairobi, Kenya, and the design firm IDEO, in Palo Alto, California.
Krista is on the board of the Bay Area Global Health Alliance and the advisory board of Design for Good, as well as continues to support Equalize Health in creating health equity. She is originally from Nova Scotia, and loves to spend time there on the Northumberland shore with her family and friends.