About Kristen

Kristen Pue is a senior policy analyst in the Social Policy Directorate of Employment and Social Development Canada, with advanced qualitative and quantitative research skills and expertise on: social and economic inclusion; health and well-being; climate resilience; climate and environmental justice; climate adaptation; social policy; housing and homelessness policy; innovation policy; philanthropy and nonprofits; and emergency management. She received a 2023 Deputy Minister’s Award of Excellence in Policy Design for her work informing Canada Disability Benefit design.

Kristen has a Ph.D. in Political Science (2021) and Master of Global Affairs (2014) from the University of Toronto, as well as a B.A. Hon. (2012) in Political Science from the University of Alberta. From 2020-2021 she was a postdoctoral fellow in philanthropy and nonprofit studies at Carleton University’s School of Public Policy and Administration. Kristen is interested in understanding the role of nonprofits in social and environmental policy, including how and under what conditions the involvement of nonprofits can enhance objectives like equality. Kristen’s dissertation examined the nonprofitization of the welfare state in homelessness and emergency management policies in Canada and the United Kingdom. It argued that there is no necessary relationship between the level of nonprofitization and the scope of social care; however, the choices that governments make in institutionalizing nonprofit social welfare provision can make a difference for the long-run trajectory of service expansiveness. In her postdoctoral research, Kristen examined local homelessness funding networks in Canadian cities, as well as advocacy and democracy promotion by homeless shelter nonprofits.  

From 2018-2022, Kristen was affiliated with PhiLab, the Canadian Network of Partner Research on Philanthropy. In 2017 Kristen was a Junior Research Fellow in Nuffield College at the University of Oxford. She has held major research awards and scholarships, including: the Sir James Lougheed Award of Distinction (2017), Ontario Graduate Scholarship (2018), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Postdoctoral Fellowship (2021-2023), Canada Graduate Scholars (CGS) Doctoral Scholarship (2015-2018), SSHRC Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement (2017), and SSHRC CGS Master’s Scholarship. Kristen’s research interests include political economy, philanthropy and inequality, nonprofit advocacy, the welfare state, international trade, environmental governance, social innovation, transnational advocacy movements, and the role of philanthropy in social policy.