Kristin Feierabend

As the Director of Learning and Impact, Kristin drives MDC’s organizational learning agenda, working closely with MDC project teams to identify key program learnings to share with a variety of audiences, increasing MDC’s impact throughout the South. Kristin also leads content creation and delivery of MDC’s flagship State of the South programming. 

Prior to joining MDC, Kristin served as the Area Agent for Urban Programs with North Carolina Cooperative Extension, a local-state-federal partnership that leverages the unique assets of land-grant universities to enrich local communities and economies. During her tenure with Cooperative Extension, Kristin worked at the state and national levels to advance the organization’s relevance and impact in urban areas, strengthening the credibility of a historically rural-serving organization among urban audiences. Kristin was also instrumental in the development of Wake County’s Social & Economic Vitality initiative, a community-centered collaborative working to promote systems change and upward mobility within vulnerable communities. 

Kristin spent four years working with the Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group (CSG) in Washington, DC. There, she supported community leaders across the country working to build regional prosperity and increase economic success for low-income families. During graduate school and while serving in AmeriCorps, she lived in the snowy Northeast, but she knew she would eventually return to the Southeast she called home.  

Kristin was raised in Bristol, Tennessee, in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains. She has an M.A. in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning from Tufts University and a B.A. in Sociology and Environmental Studies from Furman University.