Dr. Kimberly Krupa’s work is anchored in her experience as a newspaper journalist, applied sociologist, researcher and social change leader. Born and raised in New Jersey, she received her journalism degree from The College of New Jersey while working full-time as a newspaper reporter for The Times of Trenton, where she led coverage of 9/11 and the ensuing anthrax attacks. Dr. Krupa relocated to Houma, Louisiana in January 2002 to serve as education reporter and, later, investigative reporter for The Courier, a community newspaper located in the center of what National Geographic once dubbed, “the hurricane hotspot of the world.” Dr. Krupa was on the frontlines of Hurricane Katrina and Rita coverage in fall 2005, twin experiences that inspired her interest in understanding the process of social change in vulnerable communities.
For more than a decade, Dr. Krupa served in various positions connected to the rebuilding of south Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. She led a long-term National Science Foundation-funded research project on community resilience for Brown University; helped raise $150 million in funding for community impact through Tulane University’s Tulane Empowers campaign; and led a statewide antipoverty collaborative called Rethink Hunger from 2013 to 2017. In her personal time, Dr. Krupa helped rebuild the Broadmoor neighborhood of New Orleans by focusing on education, health and wellbeing, an effort that culminated in the 2010 passing (and 2016 renewal) of a $100 parcel fee for quality-of-life programs.
In July 2017, Dr. Krupa became executive director of Achieve Escambia, a cradle-to-career collective impact partnership based in Pensacola, Florida, where she works with teams as they identify problems, develop action plans for implementing a change, and then align their efforts to improve a targeted outcome on Escambia County’s communitywide roadmap for success. Dr. Krupa is a frequent speaker on topics in collaboration, collective impact and community change, including equity and engagement; data, evaluation and continuous learning; facilitation and design; implementation science; and education and youth. She earned her doctorate in urban studies from the University of New Orleans in 2019 and is currently working on a book about community change on the Gulf Coast.