Kris’ educational background consists of a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and a Master’s degree in Public Health with an emphasis in Epidemiology. She is certified in Emergency Management and Business Continuity. Kris has spent her professional career working in the healthcare industry and has been leading emergency management programs since 2006. She has also served in leadership roles in the regional health and medical coalition and been activated for large scale events. In addition to leading emergency management programs, Kris has developed, implemented and led system-wide business continuity programs for healthcare organizations. Kris’ role in emergency management in a level 1 trauma center and a large statewide healthcare system required in-depth knowledge of all-hazards emergency operations planning and ICS, HICS, and NIMS concepts and frameworks, as well as integration of healthcare response plans with local, state, and federal response agencies and regional healthcare coalitions. Kris is currently serving as an Emergency Management and Business Continuity consultant for the COVID-19 response and is an instructor for FEMA’s Center for Domestic Preparedness. Kris has responded to several hospital and regional/state incidents that include highly infectious disease outbreaks and pandemics, tornado touchdowns, supply chain disruption, work stoppage, and utility failures, as well as large scale, multi-jurisdictional events such as COVID-19 pandemic, bridge collapse, NFL Championship, and NCAA Final Four. For these incidents, Kris served as incident commander or on the incident command team for the healthcare system, the regional health and medical coalition incident management team, and the local emergency operations center. In addition, Kris has served on the Health Emergency Response Office team at the University of Minnesota during the COVID -19 pandemic.