Kristin Valentine is an Emeritus Professor of communication at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on performance studies, specifically on fieldwork-based ethnographies of cultural performances in Arizona, Spain, and New Zealand. Parallel to performance ethnography is her interest in communication and creative writing to, with, and for incarcerated women. She was project director of a National Endowment for the Humanities grant that featured the performance and discussion of contemporary Western American fiction in the public libraries of the Phoenix valley.
Valentine is a co-founder of The Empty Space, a performance venue that features scholarship developed by students and faculty in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication. Projects range from extended solo performances to group performances, including explorations in ethnographic, literary or other performance forms and methods.