Kira Kazantsev is an advocate on women’s issues, speaker, and event host. She served as Miss America 2015.

She most recently co-hosted the 2016 AMA’s Coca Cola Red Carpet Preshow and serves as a regular guest host on EXTRA. She has presented awards at the Academy of Country Music, American Country Countdown, American Music Awards and the Billboard Music Awards. She has contributed writing pieces to Huffington Post, USA Today, and has appeared on HuffPost Live’s Domestic Violence Awareness: Making Campuses Safe panel, AOL Build Series, The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson, Live with Kelly and Michael, Jimmy Kimmel, Access Hollywood, Inside Edition, and EXTRA as a guest host.

During her year as Miss America, she served as the National Goodwill Ambassador for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, advocated on behalf of her personal platform: Love Shouldn’t Hurt: Protecting Women Against Domestic Violence, and was the first Miss America since 1971 to travel overseas, including Afghanistan, Bahrain, and South Korea with the USO to visit our troops.

As an advocate against Domestic Violence, Kira has been a long time partner with Safe Horizon, the largest provider of Domestic Violence services in the country. She was honored by Safe Horizon with their Voice of Empowerment award alongside actor and activist Alan Cumming, serves on their Leaders on the Horizon board, and together, they created the #PutTheNailInIt campaign, which encourages people to paint their left ring fingernail purple to show their support against Domestic Violence and put the nail in domestic violence for good. The national #PutTheNailInIt campaign PSA continues to be featured on the discovery channel.

She has made guest speaking appearances all over the country on a variety of subjects at Domestic violence shelters, conferences, fundraising events and universities including Clemson University, San Diego State, and Georgetown University.

Kira studied Political Science, Global Studies, and Geography at Hofstra University Honors College and graduated in 2013. She also speaks Russian and Spanish.