Kate joined OLT as Executive Director in March 2021. Trained as an anthropologist, she held a career in research and teaching, including on the relationship among people, livelihoods, and ecosystems.

For years, she dreamed of leaving academia and practicing what she preached. Having visited the Okanogan Valley several times, she was thrilled at the chance to move here and help conserve its natural and working landscapes.

Kate was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, but spent much of her early life traveling the world, thanks to her father’s work in global public health, before returning to the US for a BA at Reed College. While working on her PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of California, San Diego, she lived for a year and a half in the Hunza Valley in Northern Pakistan, where she studied the relationship between local cultural and religious values and international development.

She brings her anthropological skills as a listener and observer and her appreciation for the inter-dependence of social and natural systems to her role at OLT. She is happy to talk with anyone who cares about the Okanogan and its people, and she is eager to learn from as many perspectives as possible.

Kate is an avid cook and enthusiastic novice gardener. She enjoys camping and hiking with her husband, Kevin, and aspires to improve her cross-country skiing form now that she lives in a place where she doesn’t have to drive to the snow.