Kristen P. Ahern MFA

Kristen P Ahern joins the Center for Sustainable Business as the Center Program Manager after over a decade in the arts, culture, and fashion sectors. She is the founder of Conscious Costume which provides resources for more circular theatre and film production. Through this work, she has also hosted events with community groups, circular businesses, and universities nationally and internationally. Her work in the arts has demonstrated how compelling storytelling and engaging conversations about challenges and successes across sectors can generate visionary solutions.

Kristen is excited to return to a university setting to work with some of the people most engaged with sustainable solutions, young people who will feel the greatest impacts of the climate crisis. She is excited to facilitate conversations through the Sustainable Business Forum and the Sustaining Sustainability Podcast with business professionals to ensure that decisions work for all stakeholders including local communities and staff. 

Kristen is most interested in circular economies that ask each business to take responsibility for their impact at every phase of production, use, and disposal. She envisions a future for industries that leave an environmental and ethical footprint that can be celebrated.

She holds an MFA from the University of Maryland and a BA from Western Michigan University. Kristen is inspired by the work of Dominique Drakeford, William McDonough, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Octavia E. Butler, Kate Raworth, Ian Garrett, Tanja Beer, and many others.