Kristen Ali Eglinton, PhD
Co-founder, Executive Director & Programs Director
For over twenty years, Dr. Kristen Ali Eglinton has devoted her life to elevating the voices of vulnerable, displaced, and persecuted communities around the world, including women and LGBTQIA+ survivors of violence. A feminist researcher and ethnographer, she holds a PhD in Social and Educational Research from the University of Cambridge. Her work integrates research, narrative, and digital innovation in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the Women, Peace, and Security agenda, and feminist foreign policy principles.
Kristen is an applied social scientist and expert feminist researcher specializing in qualitative, ethnographic, and arts-based methodologies. Her practice is grounded in the science of narrative, empathy, and compassion, reflecting her conviction that compassion and connection are vital tools for both personal and systemic transformation. She is recognized for her participatory research and intervention design in authoritarian, crisis, and post-crisis settings, and for advancing compassionate leadership and innovative models of feminist diplomacy as praxis. She has authored two books (Routledge; Springer), published in leading peer-reviewed journals including Youth & Society and Young, and is a frequent speaker on feminist research, diplomacy, and compassionate leadership.
She has led more than twenty international research and intervention programs focused on gender-based violence, forced displacement, mental health, and pro-democracy work. As an applied social scientist and design ethnographer, Kristen has contributed to global initiatives addressing social and emotional wellbeing, refugee voice, Aboriginal health and suicide prevention, addiction and compassion, childhood obesity, and financial inclusion. Through Footage, she has developed feminist toolkits, participatory research methods, and digital storytelling platforms that foster resilience, dignity, and dialogue in marginalized and exiled communities. Her work also spans technology-for-development initiatives, including information-sharing systems across Indigenous villages in South Africa.
Her collaborators include international foundations, universities, UN missions, nonprofits, Fortune 500 companies, and social enterprises. Her fieldwork extends across conflict and crisis-affected settings — including Ukraine, Central Asia, and across Europe with refugees, including camps in Greece — as well as in rural and urban contexts, including New York City.
Under her leadership, Footage has implemented feminist research interventions in more than a dozen countries, built one of the world’s largest digital storytelling platforms for women and gender-expansive survivors of violence, and received twelve U.S. Department of State Public Diplomacy awards. Her work centers dialogue diplomacy, connecting research and lived experience to influence humanitarian response and inform policy at both local and global levels.
Kristen’s work through Footage has been featured in major international fora and media including the BBC, Libération, the UN Commission on the Status of Women, and the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. When not traveling for fieldwork or advocacy, Kristen makes her home between Paris and New York City.