Kristy Buckley, Ph.D.

Kristy Buckley brings over 15 years of experience in global multilateral and multi-stakeholder policy processes ranging from climate change, food systems, public health, and technical internet governance. Her areas of expertise include collaborative problem-solving, multi-stakeholder process design, and organizational strategy development.
Currently, Kristy serves as the Outreach & Digital Inclusion Director for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). In this role, she leads the Applicant Support Program for the next round of applications for generic top-level domains (gTLDs). Prior to this role, she served as an independent consultant providing research, analysis, and strategic advice to civil society organizations, research institutions, and philanthropy. She brings a collaborative spirit and an interdisciplinary perspective based on her work across diverse sectors and international policy arenas such as the UN Climate Change Negotiations (UNFCCC) and the UN Food Systems Summit.
Previously, Kristy served as a Senior Mediator and Program Manager at Meridian Institute. There, she gained 12 years of experience designing, managing, and advising on multi-stakeholder processes spanning science, technology, and policy at the global level. Her projects cut across multiple scales and governance systems such as fostering South-South collaboration and capacity development to reduce tropical deforestation to facilitating a 3-year series of informal policy dialogues among agricultural negotiators in the UNFCCC.
Kristy holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from The George Washington University and an LL.M. in International Law with International Relations from the University of Kent, Brussels School of International Studies. She earned a doctorate in Sustainable Development Diplomacy from Wageningen University in The Netherlands while working full-time and raising two young children. She is grateful to live, work, and play in British Columbia, Canada on the traditional unceded territory of the Kʼómoks First Nation