About

Kris Coffield is the Executive Director of Imua Alliance, a non-profit victim service provider for survivors of human trafficking located in Honolulu, Hawai’i. He has spearheaded the organization’s restorative assistance for over 200 survivors of sexual exploitation, while working to enact legislative reforms that strengthen the state’s anti-trafficking continuum of care.

He is also the Chief of Staff for Rep. Jeanné Kapela at the Hawai’i State House of Representatives, where he is responsible for managing a public policy agenda that focuses on climate resilience, economic equality, tax fairness, educational equity, labor rights, racial and gender justice, and civil liberties. Previously, he championed efforts to increase school funding and restorative education programming as a government relations specialist with the Hawai’i State Teachers Association. He is a pioneering voice on numerous social and economic justice organizations in the islands, including the Raise Up Hawai’i coalition and Democratic Party of Hawai’i Education Caucus, for which he currently serves as chairperson.

Kris is an independent scholar, whose academic research explores the intersection of modern political theory, critical security studies, and postcolonialism. A survivor of sexual violence, he is a leading advocate for increasing protections for victims of gender violence and empowering communities to prevent harm before it begins. He is currently completing a poetry collection about the cultural experience of trauma and his personal healing journey.

He was awarded a 2021-2022 Landecker Democracy Fellowship by Humanity In Action and the Landecker Democracy Foundation. During the fellowship, he launched Platforming Peace, a movement to counter the digital reproduction of social inequality and authoritarianism. He is hoping to develop communal interventions that respond to the antidemocratic proliferation of structural discrimination in cyberspace. He was also awarded a 2022-2023 Racial Equity Grant from Humanity In Action to develop an anti-racist social media toolkit that allows digital citizens to coordinate networked communities of care that respond to online incidents of racial hatred.

In his spare time, he can be found editing his many writing projects, running up the mountain trails of windward O’ahu, and indulging his unending craving for chai tea lattes. View his professional resumé at his LinkedIn page: professional experience. Organizations with which he is affiliated appear below, along with a headshot that may be reused and redistributed.

Imua Alliance, Founder and Executive Director (2010-present)

Raise Up Hawai’i, Chairperson (2022-present)

Hawai’i Coalition Against Human Trafficking, Member (2012-present)

Democratic Party of Hawai’i, Education Caucus Chair (2018-present)

Humanity In Action, Racial Equity Grantee (2022-2023)

Landecker Democracy Foundation, Landecker Democracy Fellow (2021-2022)

Hawai’i State Teachers Association, Government Relations Consultant (2012-2018)

Friends of Jeanné Kapela, Campaign Manager (2018-present)

Friends of Amy Perruso, Campaign Manager (2018-2020)

Friends of Micah Pregitzer, Campaign Manager (2019-2020)