Kristin Palmer

Biography

Dr. Kristin Palmer is the Program Director for Distance Education for Africa (DeAfrica) and a Social Innovation Fellow at Fielding Graduate University.  Dr. Palmer is supporting a two-year partnership with Africa’s Leading Ladies to develop and support women entrepreneurs across Africa through education. Her work with DeAfrica has now provided over 48,000 scholarships reaching learners in every country on the continent creating lasting economic impact and promoting gender equity.  Dr. Palmer has published eight books and has done hundreds of presentations on her work to promote how to build effective learning communities at scale leveraging the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, social media, and volunteers.  She is the recipient of the 2021 UPCEA Award for Special Populations and 2022 UPCEA Award for International Online Learning Leadership.    Prior to this role, Dr. Palmer was the Director of Online Learning Programs at the University of Virginia (UVA) for twelve years.   She was responsible for online program development, compliance, marketing, communication, relationship management, and global outreach.