Name: Kristine Hart
Email: kh1392@nyu.edu
Program: International Education
Research Interests: Peace & Conflict Studies, Genocide Studies, Trauma-informed Pedagogy, Historical Trauma, and History Education
Principal Advisor(s): Elisabeth King
Research Description/Bio:
Kristine Hart’s research focuses on teaching and learning about peace and conflict, with particular attention to trauma-informed pedagogy and experiential education. Her work is grounded in questions about the responsibilities educators assume when learning itself becomes emotionally demanding, particularly in experiential settings where students engage with difficult knowledge not only in the classroom but through visits to memorial sites and places of atrocity, conversations with survivors, and examinations of contemporary extremism. Her research examines how educators approach sensitive and potentially distressing material in these contexts and how students understand and articulate their emotional, academic, and ethical experiences. More broadly, she explores how educators can create learning environments that support deep engagement with difficult knowledge while attending to students’ emotional, intellectual, and ethical development and what responsible teaching looks like when students are asked to encounter humanity at its most difficult.
Kristine brings nearly a decade of experience in international and higher education to her research. Prior to joining the International Education program at NYU Steinhardt, she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mesang, Cambodia, and later taught in Shenzhen, China, and at the Ross School in East Hampton, New York. She earned her MA in International Education from NYU in 2018 and has since held positions supporting global education programs at NYU Shanghai and NYU Abu Dhabi in New York. She currently serves as Associate Director of Academic Administration at NYU Abu Dhabi in New York. She has also taught English language courses at Saint Peter’s University and delivered professional development courses for NYU Abu Dhabi, NYU Shanghai, and NYU Steinhardt.
In 2023, Kristine received the Shearwater Grant and the ASH Professional Development and Research Support Fund to participate in the Genocide and Human Rights University Program at the Zoryan Institute in Toronto, an experience that further developed her interests in genocide education, difficult histories, and the pedagogical dimensions of teaching about violence.
Her current research with NYU’s Resilient Society program has also received institutional support. In 2026, Kristine was awarded a Doctoral Research & Travel Grant and the NYU Steinhardt International Education Doctoral Travel Fund Award to support her field research examining teaching and learning about conflict, violence, extremism, and difficult histories in experiential education.
Kristine holds an MA in International Education from New York University, a BA in Psychology from Loyola University Maryland, and a certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).
When she is not studying or researching, Kristine can be found building LEGO sets, playing sports, or eating ice cream with her wonderful nephews, Jameson and Logan.