Kristen Ann Walters
VerifiedColumbia University · American Language Program
Active 1993–2026
About
Kristen Ann Walters is a recognized expert in risk management with extensive experience across the financial services sector, including buy-side firms such as asset managers, hedge funds, and asset owners, as well as large trading and commercial banks. She has held leadership positions at prominent institutions including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, a top 10 global pension fund, and a large, global bank-owned asset manager. Her expertise encompasses investment and enterprise risk management, technology, regulatory compliance, policy, investment strategy, and operational platforms. Kristen is known for her ability to develop 'de novo' risk functions, build high-performing teams, and integrate risk management into investment and trading strategies to leverage growth. She has managed risk through multiple business cycles and financial crises, and has worked closely with industry leaders and regulators on systemic, market, credit, liquidity, derivatives, operational, and sustainability risks, contributing to regulatory policies and thought leadership in the field. Kristen has engaged directly with boards of major investment firms, including her roles as CRO for Canada Pension Plan Investments and Natixis Investment Managers, where she enhanced risk governance and reporting. With 35 years of experience, she has also advised the CFTC and worked at firms such as PIMCO, Barclays Capital, and KPMG, starting her career in supervision and regulation at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. She holds a B.B.A. in Accounting with an Economics minor from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an M.B.A. in Finance from Babson College.
Research topics
- Sociology
- Psychology
- Medicine
- Social psychology
- Political Science
- Gender studies
- Social Science
- Psychotherapist
- Virology
- Law
- Media studies
- Biology
- Pedagogy
- Epistemology
- Aesthetics
- Ecology
- Art
- Gerontology
- Geography
Selected publications
Confronting Trauma to Change a Community’s Health Trajectory
2026-04-08
book-chapterSenior authorAbstract Two communities grappling with the impacts of trauma. One involves Native people whose health today reflects the experiences of ancestors who faced genocide at the hands of settlers and a government determined to eradicate them. The other is the LGBTQ+ community, which has historically been ridiculed, excluded, or criminalized, yet came together in the face of HIV/AIDS. Both narratives reveal the burden of trauma while also highlighting the power of united communities. Karina Walters, PhD, MSW, directs the National Institutes of Health Tribal Health Research Office and is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, which was cast off its ancestral lands by the US government. That history has become the springboard for culturally rooted interventions to improve health. Gabriel Maldonado, MBA, is an activist committed to improving the lives of LGBTQ+ people. TruEvolution leads a community response that has challenged the enduring stigma shouldered by this population.
Social Sciences · 2025-04-23
articleOpen accessMāori wisdom revolutionized the child welfare system through the now manualized Family Group Conferencing method. The global trend of adopting and adapting this culturally grounded child welfare practice has been well documented. However, as this service model is adapted and imported to other countries, so is its legacy of settler colonialism. This qualitative case study applies Settler Colonialism Theory to unpack the settler colonialism embedded in the process of adopting an adapted Indigenist family engagement program in Taiwan. Research findings indicate that cultural adaptation reproduces settler colonialism. To implement family engagement within a paternalistic CPS system, program implementers struggled between authoritative decision making and building meaningful state–family partnerships. Although adhering to a model that ostensibly involves family decision making may ease settler anxiety among program implementers, settler colonialism remains the elephant in the room. It frequently undergirds the cultural adaptation process. Liberatory social work practice calls for unpacking settler anxiety, systems of power, and cultural imperialism embedded in program implementation.
UNC Libraries · 2025-08-12
articleOpen accessAmerican Journal of Public Health · 2024-01-01 · 14 citations
editorialOpen accessElevating Voice and Visibility: Health Research for American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian American, and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Populations in the United States, an article from American Journal of Public Health, Vol 114 Issue S1
Hawai‘i Journal of Health & Social Welfare · 2024-08-01
articleOpen access< .05). Residency in the continental US had no observed effect on the odds that participants engaged cultural activities or cultural coping strategies. These results support the role of place of residency as an important Native Hawaiian health predictor during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.
Scope and historical origins of substance use disorders among Native American communities.
American Psychological Association eBooks · 2024-01-01
book-chapterSenior authorJAIDS Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes · 2023-09-14 · 1 citations
articleOpen accessSenior authorIntroduction: Although great heterogeneity and resilience exist among American Indians and Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, and Indigenous Latinx Populations across the United States, epidemiological data demonstrate these groups share a troubling commonality with respect to persistent health inequities, including HIV. A strong network of highly trained and productive Indigenous scientists dedicated to research that is culturally grounded is one component of a multifaceted approach that would contribute to ameliorating HIV-related disparities among Indigenous populations. Methods: Building on the only long-standing Indigenous-specific HIV/AIDS mentorship program in the United States—the Indigenous HIV/AIDS Research Training Program and with support from the CFAR Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Pathway Initiative, the University of Washington/Fred Hutch CFAR developed and launched the Building Indigenuity, Generating HIV Science: HIV/AIDS Research Training Program (BIG HART) to introduce undergraduate and graduate Indigenous scholars to the field of HIV research. Results: The BIG HART program includes a seminar series to introduce undergraduate and graduate Indigenous scholars to the field of HIV research, opportunities to connect scholars with Indigenous mentors and provide networking opportunities to facilitate training opportunities related to HIV science, and complementary training for mentors to enhance their knowledge and training related to mentoring across difference, with a specific focus on mentoring Indigenous scholars. Conclusions: The BIG HART program is an important starting point toward building a sustainable program to attract Indigenous scholars in the field of HIV and grow and empower the next generation of Indigenous HIV scientists.
American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research · 2023-04-01
articleOpen accessSenior authorWe examined prevalence of mental health treatment utilization among 447 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and Two-Spirit (LGBTT-S) American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) adults and the association of mental health treatment utilization with socio-demographic factors, social support, and mental health diagnoses. We derived data from the HONOR Project, a multi-site cross-sectional survey of Native LGBTT-S adults from seven U.S. metropolitan cities. Rates of lifetime mental health treatment utilization were higher for women (87%), those who were college educated (84%), and homeowners (92%). Cisgender women and transgender AI/AN adults had a higher prevalence than cisgender men of major depression, generalized anxiety, and panic disorder. Rates of subthreshold and threshold posttraumatic stress disorder were significantly higher for transgender adults. Lower positive social support and higher emotional social support were associated with greater odds of mental health treatment utilization. Mental health diagnoses and lifetime mental health treatment utilization was positively associated.
Oxford University Press eBooks · 2022-05-19 · 7 citations
book-chapterActive social work leadership is necessary to achieve national goals of health equity. Indeed, the nation’s health depends on the development of this next wave of interprofessional and transdisciplinary collaboration (McGovern, Miller, & Hughes-Cromwick, 2014). This chapter describes a “geography of science” approach that draws upon diverse disciplines, community leaders, and theoretical and community-center perspectives. Social work, must train professionals in how improve availability and access to the social determinants of good health. This includes understand how racism constitutes an important social determinant of health. We must also educate allied professionals to develop the practice and research tools, community partnerships, and localized programs necessary to combat social and economic inequities. Ten priorities for changing health systems to achieve equitable health care are advanced. Finally, to secure true, sustainable, population-based health changes, social work must assist the health professions to unite and develop transdisciplinary approaches to addressing the multilayered contributions of political, economic, and social determinants of population health inequities.
Infectious Disease Clinics of North America · 2022-02-01 · 29 citations
reviewOpen access
Recent grants
Yappalli Choctaw Road To Health
NIH · $3.2M · 2014–2022
The ITZA Program: Indigenous HIV/AIDS Research Training 3 (IHART3) Program
NIH · $3.5M · 2009–2027
NIH · $948k · 2017
NIH · $363k · 2003
NIH · $12.0M · 2018
Frequent coauthors
- 49 shared
Jane M. Simoni
University of Washington
- 18 shared
Teresa Evans‐Campbell
- 12 shared
David H. Chae
Tulane University
- 11 shared
Ramona Beltrán
University of Denver
- 11 shared
Bonnie Duran
- 11 shared
Cynthia Pearson
University of Washington
- 9 shared
Keren Lehavot
University of Washington
- 9 shared
Tessa Evans-Campbell
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