People

Kristen Symbula is a Master of Divinity student at Harvard Divinity School. She has served as a research associate at the Peabody Museum and Moses American Archive, where her research has focused on the religious dimensions of human–animal relationships in the cosmologies, myths, and sacrificial ritual practices of Mesoamerica. She also studies embodied forms of knowledge expressed in Indigenous textile traditions in Chiapas, Mexico through the work of “Weaving for Justice” in Las Cruces, New Mexico.  

Kristen’s work has been influenced by Arthur Kleinman’s understanding of “wisdom” as a form of caretaking: caretaking with others and for others, and she understands the care of animal life as inseparable from the care of human life and the natural world.

Her research at the ALPP will focus on how the Buddhist and Islamic traditions might contribute to a richer understanding of the relationships among humans, nonhuman animals, and nature. 

Kristen holds a BA in Religious Studies from Temple University.