Krista Donaldson

Krista Donaldson, PhD, has driven innovation in product design, engineering, and international development for more than 15 years. As D-Rev’s CEO, Krista’s has led the release of Brilliance, a revolutionary technology treating neonatal jaundice, and the ReMotion prosthetic knee. Her leadership has won Krista acclaim as one of Fast Company’s Co.Design 50 Designers Shaping the Future, a TED speaker and a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer. She has also been a Rainer Arnhold Fellow and a Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow.

Prior to D-Rev, Krista served as a Diplomacy Fellow in the U.S. Department of State’s American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), where she guided economic policy and the reconstruction of Iraq’s electricity sector. Her work there earned recognition for its impact on bilateral relations. From 1998 to 2001, she worked as a design engineer and researcher with KickStart International (formerly ApproTEC) in Nairobi, Kenya. She also has worked at the product design firm IDEO.

A native of Nova Scotia, Krista holds a BE in Mechanical Engineering from Vanderbilt University as well as a MSE (Product Design), MSME and a PhD from Stanford University. Her doctoral work was among the first to focus on engineering and social entrepreneurship in less industrialized economies. Krista has taught at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya and South Africa’s University of Cape Town. She is also currently a lecturer at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University.