Kristal Hale is a textile conservator in Northern California. She previously served as Conservator, Textiles at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and has experience working with artists, galleries, and museums, including the Abegg-Stiftung Foundation, Switzerland, and The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Kristal has also collaborated on treatments of textiles from The Art Institute of Chicago, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Germany, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF). She holds an M.A. in art conservation with a textile specialization, and a B.S. from the Bern University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland as well as undergraduate degrees from San Francisco State University in Art History and Studio Art.

Her professional engagement covers regional and international conservation networks, and she has published with American Institute for Conservation (AIC), The International Council of Museums Conservation Committee (ICOM-CC), The North American Textile Conservation Conference (NATCC), and Textile Arts Council (TSA). As someone active at the intersection of heritage preservation and contemporary museum practices, she supports conservation education in Indonesia and greater Southeast Asia and serves as a board member of Tracing Patterns Foundation.