Kristen Keener Busby, AICP, is the associate director for practice and partnerships with the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy. She has 25 years of land use planning and policy experience in sustainability, community development, infrastructure, and natural resource resiliency and is a recognized leader in smart growth who has designed a variety of educational and outreach programs. She also has a passion for growing and leveraging strategic public and private partnerships to help communities solve complex land use challenges. Previously, she was a director at the Urban Land Institute in Arizona and the sustainability manager at the Arizona Department of Transportation, and she led the Arizona Office of Smart Growth. She received a bachelor’s in public and environmental affairs from Indiana University and a master’s in environmental and urban planning from Arizona State University.