Kirsten Gelsdorf is a professor of practice of public policy and leadership and the director of Global Humanitarian Policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Gelsdorf brings almost 20 years of experience working in the humanitarian sector.   

At Batten, she co-directs the UVA Humanitarian Collaborative, a research initiative bringing together scholars, global practitioners, and students to develop research and policy supporting the needs of vulnerable populations caught in humanitarian crisis. Through this, she has served as the principal investigator and has co-led numerous applied research projects for organizations such as the American Red Cross, ELRA, United Nations, Sesame Workshop, and the German government. She also has been elected to serve on the World Economic Forum Advisory Network and Humanitarian Innovation Fund Funding Committee, and she is a senior fellow at the United Nations Centre for Humanitarian Data.