North Carolina First Lady Kristin Cooper

Kristin Cooper is honored to serve as First Lady of North Carolina, a state she has called home for most of her life.

The daughter of an artist and a Vietnam veteran and physician, Mrs. Cooper grew up in Oklahoma City along with her three younger sisters. She attended public schools, earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Oklahoma, and then attended Campbell Law School in North Carolina. After graduating law school, she worked as a staff attorney to the legislature in Oklahoma and in North Carolina.

Kristin Cooper is using her platform to improve the well-being of children in North Carolina. She champions initiatives, organizations, and people who are working to create a safe, nurturing, healthy environment for children and their families. Her focus is on foster care, child abuse and neglect, childhood hunger, and literacy. Additionally, she focuses on the arts and nature to ensure that all children in North Carolina have access to play and thrive creatively. Mrs. Cooper’s attention to these causes underscores how the integration of these issues stems from the effects of adverse childhood experiences, trauma, toxic stress, and poverty.

Kristin has served as a Guardian ad Litem for children in Wake County since 2003, using her legal training to represent foster children in court. Kristin and other volunteers assure that at-risk children do not become neglected or abandoned. Kristin also served two terms on the North Carolina Arts Council, and serves on Raleigh Little Theatre Advisory Board..

She and Governor Roy Cooper raised their three daughters here in North Carolina. Each of them is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.