Ms. Kirsten Evans is the Director of the Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives, and acts as the senior advisor to USAID Administrator Mark Green on global engagement of the faith-based community. Prior to USAID, Ms. Evans was the Chief Operating Officer of Educando by Worldfund, a non-profit organization utilizing public-private partnerships for innovative leadership and professional training of public school sector educators in Mexico and Brazil, a region where she had gained several years of experience leading faith-based education and service institutions early on in her career.  From 2014 to 2016, Ms. Evans served as the Executive Director of In Defense of Christians, a leading Washington DC based organization advocating for the protection and preservation of religious minorities in the Middle East, shaping US foreign policy recognizing Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities as victims of genocide under ISIS. In this role she engaged domestic and international media, policy makers, and civil society advocates on human rights issues particular to religious and ethnic minorities.  Previously, Ms. Evans represented the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in its ongoing relationship with national Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Orthodox and Christian communities, including joint service collaborations, public policy analysis and advocacy, and inter-religious theological dialogue.

Ms. Evans holds a Masters degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), with a focus on the role of religious actors in global affairs and development. She also holds a Masters degree in Religious Sciences from the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University in Rome, Italy, and a specialization in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford.