Kristen MacAskill is an Associate Professor of Engineering, Environment and Sustainable Development in the Cambridge University Department of Engineering. She is a Chartered Engineer with the Institution of Civil Engineering. Before returning to a role in academia, Kristen worked for several years as a consulting engineer in the water and transport sectors.

Her experience covers various areas of infrastructure development, including strategic-level options assessment, post-earthquake damage assessment, infrastructure design, project management, and sustainability assessment. Her research now focuses on systems analysis to advance approaches for managing risks and system resilience. Using cross-disciplinary research methods and examining information from different system levels (from international policy to local or even individual decision-making behaviours), she investigates governance issues in the management of critical infrastructure and the delivery of major projects.

Her research encompasses developing quantitative network models and, more unusually for an engineer, analysing qualitative data through stakeholder liaison techniques.