Kier Olsen DeVries

Kier Olsen DeVries is a communication consultant who has been working as an editor, writer, researcher, and content curator since 1995. She spent over 23 of those years as Senior Editor at The Communication Initiative (The CI), an online international network focused on communication for social change that ceased operations due to loss of funding in March 2025. As part of that role, Kier wrote and edited hundreds of editions of The CI’s flagship e-magazine, The Drum Beat.

Kier has a deep understanding of major development issues and actors in the social and behavior change (SBC) field and in the development sector more generally. She is particularly knowledgeable about strategic communication in the areas of public health, polio and vaccination, gender, social norms, community engagement, participatory action research, human-centered design, and equity.

A native of the United States, Kier nonetheless worked in Canadian English for over two decades, collaborated with colleagues in Latin America and South Africa, and corresponded daily with SBC practitioners and scholars across the world. A key passion of Kier's is communicating with people from diverse backgrounds in timely, responsive ways that reflect her genuine desire to help bring their vision to life via the written word.

Kier holds an MA in Philosophy, and her extensive board membership and volunteer commitments focus on bioethics and religion.