Kristen Haring is a historian of science and technology whose interests have always crossed disciplinary boundaries.

She began her studies at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving a BA, magna cum laude, in mathematics. Based on the depth of her complementary studies in the humanities and social sciences, the faculty elected her to Phi Beta Kappa. At the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, she passed the PhD exams in mathematics before leaving with an MS and transitioning to historical studies.

Haring earned the PhD in history of science from Harvard University. She then held positions as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, and as an Art, Science, and Business Fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, before joining the history faculty at Auburn University. Her teaching addresses science and technology as components of culture, while her research currently focuses on communications technology. Haring's publications include Ham Radio's Technical Culture (MIT Press, 2007). The Society for the History of Technology awarded her the 2004 IEEE Life Members' Prize in Electrical History.

Haring's Morse code knitting project arose from her dual academic background in mathematics and the history of technology, as well as from her personal experience with craft. She realized that a tangible demonstration had the potential to reach a much wider audience than could a scholarly publication. Raised in a family where everyone made decorative objects, Haring did not hesitate to employ knitting as a way to explain binary systems and to explore communication practices.

Haring lives and works in Auburn, Alabama, USA.