Kristin Beeler joined the faculty of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design at the University of Dundee, Scotland UK in 2023.

From 2002-2023, she was Professor of Art and Coordinator of Jewelry and Metalwork at Long Beach City College in the Los Angeles, California area. She is native to the Blue Ridge Mountains of central Appalachia and is a second generation graduate of historically interracial and craft-centered Berea College receiving a BFA in Crafts and Applied Design with a minor in Philosophy (1989). Her Master of Fine Arts in Jewelry from the University of Arizona (1994) was followed later by post graduate studies at Alchemia Jewellery School in Florence, Italy (2011) and Atelier Rudee, Bangkok, Thailand (2013). 

Solo exhibitions include Integumentum 2021 at Baltimore Jewelry Center, Baltimore, Maryland, Archive of Rag and Bone at Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, Phoenix, Arizona (2016) and Beauty and Other Monsters at Velvet da Vinci Gallery, San Fransisco, California (2007).

Recent group exhibitions include: 2020 - Body Control, Museum Arnhem, Netherlands, Site Effects, Bavarian Society of Applied Arts, Munich, Germany; Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA (Cancelled) Baltimore Jewelry Center, Baltimore MD  Broken Beauty: Alliages Gallery Lilles, France, Munich Jewellery Week (Cancelled) Melting Point Valencia Spain (Postponed) Athens Jewellery Week  (Cancelled), The Limit Itself: Globe Dye Works, Philadelphia for SNAG 2020 (Cancelled); 2019 - Charmed, Sienna Patti Contemporary, Uneasy Beauty at the Fuller Museum; 2018 - La Frontera at the Museum of Art and Design NY; 2016 - Shadow Themes at Reinstien/Ross in New York, (Lost) Paradise at Alliages in Lilles, France; 2015 - California Handmade: State of the Arts at the Maloof Foundation, Los Angeles, 2014 - SEIRAAD International Jewellery, Amsterdam, La Frontera at the Franz Meyer Museum, Mexico City and Extreme Beauty at the Glassell School of Art, University of Texas, Houston. 

She lectures regularly on her work and its themes: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Material Matters conference North Carolina, Smitten Forum Symposium Sante Fe, La Frontera Symposium Mexico City, the Northwest Metals Symposium, Seattle, the Society of North American Goldsmiths conference, Houston, the Yuma Symposium and an essay published in Metalsmith magazine. 

She was short-listed twice for the Susan Beech Mid-Career Grant (2017, 2021) and in 2018 received her second Professional Artist Fellowship from the Arts Council of Long Beach. She has twice been a visiting artist at Cranbrook Academy of Art, a resident artist at Cleveland Institute of Art, Kent State University and Atelier Francesca Gabrielli, Rome. From 2016-2018 she was also Research Associate at the University of Technology Sydney in the Faculty of Engineering and IT working with the Materialising Memories research programme.

She has been represented in exhibitions at contemporary jewelry galleries internationally including Flow Gallery, London; Vennel Gallery, Scotland; Lalabeyou Gallery, Madrid, Spain; Galerie Alice Floriano, Sao Paolo, Brasil; Alliages Gallery, Lilles, France. In the United States, her work has been represented by Sienna Patti, Massachusetts; Velvet da Vinci, San Francisco; Facere, Seattle; Taboo, San Diego; Spiral, Seattle and Form and Concept, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Her work is included in the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Appalachian Center for Craft, Tennessee; and Berea College, Berea, Kentucky; and in the private collections of major curators of craft.

She has been published in numerous exhibition catalogs as well as SNAG Jewelry and Metals Survey 2019, Metalsmith magazine (cover Vol. 37, No. 5) 2018, Natural Materials Jewellery Handbook, A&C Black Publishers, 500 Lockets and Pendants, Lark Books, 2006 Exhibition in Print, Metalsmith magazine, 500 Necklaces, Lark Books, 2003 Exhibition in Print and Art Jewelry Today, Schiffer Publications.

She served the Society of North American Goldsmiths from 1999-2013 in various roles including five years serving on the Board of Trustees. She currently serves on the SNAG Educational Committee and is Board Liaision to the Diversity, Equity, Access and Inclusion Committee.