Ki`i is BDT's Senior Director of Policy. Prior to BDT, Ki`i was the Office of Economic Security Director at the Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS), where from 2017-2022 she oversaw the state’s anti-poverty programs in child support services, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), food commodities programs, the Low-income Energy Assistance Program (LEAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), state-funded cash assistance programs, several employment programs, the Colorado Refugee Services Program (CRSP), and the training supports for eligibility technicians across the state.

Ki`i joined CDHS in 2010 as the research and evaluation manager in the Division of Child Welfare and served as the Department’s first Performance Management Director beginning in 2011. In that role, she built and managed C-Stat, a performance management approach for CDHS to better focus on and improve performance outcomes by reviewing over 100 measures each month. Prior to joining CDHS, she held research and evaluation roles with the Colorado Division of Mental Health and the Hawaii Department of Health’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Division.

Ki`i earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Hawai`i at Manoa and her bachelor’s in psychology from Hawai`i Pacific University. She is the mom of three kind, active, and imaginative little boys and has a feisty, yet loving cat named Alvin.