Meet Kirsten Wall, Diversity Advisory Council Member

“Diversity allows us to bring the best to the table – the best people, the best ideas, the best strategies – because it constantly asks us to challenge the norm and go beyond it.”

Kirsten Wall, M.A.
Senior Workforce Development Specialist
Human Resources

Kirsten was raised in the Portland area, and attended the University of Oregon where she earned her B.A. in Cultural Anthropology and Spanish. She then pursued her M.A. in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Her research focused on innovation, knowledge transfer and business development within communities. After returning to the states, Kirsten served as the Director of the Oregon Winegrowers’ Association and as Deputy Director for the Oregon Wine Board. Kirsten’s experience in training and development led to her to seek certifications in both Management of Training and Intercultural Training and also led to her position at OHSU. As a member of the Organizational and Workforce Development Team at OHSU, she is involved in designing curriculum and delivering training for managers and employees in support of the Leadership Foundations Series, Lead Worker Series, English Language Learner program for non-native English speaking employees, and Intercultural Communications.

Kirsten enjoys working at OHSU because of the ongoing opportunities she has to aid in the personal and professional growth of the people who serve the university. In her position, Kirsten works with many professionals who are immigrants and refugees that are either re-earning credentials they held in their home countries or earning degrees for the first time because the opportunity to do so was not available where they are from. Personally, she is touched by their perseverance, passion, humility and tenacity, and she knows that the entire university community will ultimately benefit from the knowledge, experiences and expertise that these diverse individuals bring to OHSU. She also appreciates that, despite its size, OHSU is willing to self-reflect and to work toward continuous improvement and culture change. Diversity in the workplace is important to Kirsten because it allows an organization to perform at its best. She says, “When we are aware of diversity and engaged with it, we automatically reach higher to serve better. It also allows us to be more aware of ourselves and of others as we deliver services – which results in more innovative approaches to research, teaching, healthcare delivery, and our own organizational practices.”