Kristen moved to Greenbelt in 2015 to be closer to her work as a contractor at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. She was also drawn to Greenbelt’s history and cooperative ethos. Kristen soon began attending City Council work sessions to learn more about the planning of the walking path from the Greenbelt Station neighborhood to the Metro station (alas, still forthcoming, although progress is being made in planning and permitting). Events such as the Labor Day parade and festival brought back fond memories of the Fourth of July festivities in her hometown of Greeley, Colorado, where neighborhood gatherings were frequent. After years of living in apartments and barely knowing neighbors by sight, Kristen was excited to find in Greenbelt the sense of community she had known growing up.
Soon after moving to Greenbelt Station, a neighborhood under construction, Kristen eagerly volunteered for the homeowner’s association Activities Committee formed in 2016. At that time the HOA Board of Directors was fully in the control of the developer, without any homeowner members. Kristen initially served as committee secretary, then chair, a position she still holds. Small neighborhood “get-to-know-you” gatherings of a dozen people in a living room grew to large summer and winter neighborhood parties drawing over 150 people to a rented tent in Greenbelt Station’s central park.
Kristen began to look for opportunities to become involved in the larger Greenbelt community and applied to and was appointed to the Park and Recreation Advisory Board in spring of 2018. At about the same time, she joined a new composting initiative started at the Springhill Lake Recreation Center and soon took on a leadership role in the Greenbelt Hot Composting group. (Watch an interview with Kristen about her involvement in the composting group from the Greenbelt Neighbors program of the Greenbelt Access Television.) Working with the composting group, as well as attending other local meetings and events, helped Kristen meet people from all sections of Greenbelt, a process she has continued by joining the Connecting Across Greenbelt group starting in late 2020.
All of these activities have helped Kristen focus on what she loves about Greenbelt, but also identify ways Greenbelt can be better.
Since her election to City Council in 2021, Kristen has continued to serve as council liaison to PRAB, and was pleased to vote for the adoption of the Buddy Attick Master plan in May 2025. She also serves as liaison to the Greenbelt Advisory Committee for Environmental Sustainability, which meshes well with her interest in environmental causes, such as supporting the Better Bag ordinance and promoting electric vehicles and infrastructure, stormwater management, and other climate resilience issues as part of the City’s planning processes. The latest effort underway is Save as You Throw, a unit-based pricing model for city refuse collection that will distribute costs more equitably among residents, charging more for those who generate more trash, which promises to reduce trash generation overall, saving money on tipping fees for the city in the long run.
As a member of Greenbelt City Council, Kristen is proud to have participated in the distribution of the federal American Rescue Plan Act funding through a variety of projects that support individual Greenbelters, businesses and non-profits, and catching up on infrastructure improvements delayed by the pandemic. However, those funds have all been allocated, and projects must be completed by December 2026. We now face new challenges with the economic and social disruption caused by the haphazard and cruel policies of the current federal administration, which will bring new challenges to Greenbelt and surrounding communities.
If re-elected to Greenbelt City Council, she hopes to continue be part of bringing neighborhoods together and building a stronger sense of community for all of its residents, from Miner Street and Davis Point Lane in Greenbelt Station, through Springhill Drive in Franklin Park, continuing along Lakeside Drive, Crescent Road, and Ridge Road in Central Greenbelt, all the way to Hanover Parkway and Schrom Hills in Greenbelt East. We are all Greenbelters.
Personal background:
Kristen Weaver was born in Greeley, Colorado. She graduated from Greeley Central High School in 1999 and went on to attend the University of Denver (DU), after a year as a Rotary International Exchange Student in Esbjerg, Denmark. After earning a Bachelor’s of Science in computer science and psychology (minors in mathematics and leadership studies through the Pioneer Leadership Program) in 2004, she continued in a DU teacher certification and graduate degree program. In 2006 she completed her M.A. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis on Urban Education. She taught middle school science and mathematics in Denver Public Schools from 2005-2007. After reconnecting with her now-husband, A.J., a friend from elementary and middle school, she moved to the D.C area to teach 6th and 8th grade science in Montgomery County Public Schools from 2007-2013.
After eight years of teaching, she was offered the opportunity for a one-year contract doing outreach support for NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite mission. That turned into a longer-term contractor position at Goddard Space Flight Center, first as an education specialist for the GPM mission, then as deputy coordinator for the GLOBE Observer citizen science project. She is currently an employee of Science Systems and Applications, Inc. She loves being able to bring her technical background, education experience, and passion for science together to inspire everyone to participate in science and data collection with NASA.