Kristy Leissle

EVENT UPDATE: Dr. Leissle will be teaching a webinar on her Radical Listening methodology for writing research on August 14. Learn strategies for cross-cultural communication and flattening hierarchies in the research process. Register today https://www.hedgebrook.org/webinar-series Dr. Kristy Leissle is a scholar of cocoa and chocolate. Since 2004, she has researched and written about the politics, economics, and cultures of the cocoa-chocolate trade in Africa, Europe, and North America. Her work reveals the realities of everyday life for the women and men who make chocolate possible, especially in West Africa. Among other works, Dr. Leissle is the author of Cocoa, on industry politics, and the series, “I am a cocoa farmer,” for ConfectioneryNews, where she serves on the Editorial Board. She is currently researching for a book on Africa’s contributions to global chocolate. Dr. Leissle is Affiliate Faculty in African Studies at the University of Washington, and Co-Founder of the Cocoapreneurship Institute of Ghana. She lives in Accra. To learn more about Dr. Leissle's work and to read a selection of her articles, visit https://docofchoc.com/.