Kate has recently (June 2022) joined CDM Smith’s Climate Resilience Team as a project leader. Through this role, she will provide expertise on how to integrate considerations for addressing the impacts of climate change across a variety of projects from city-level to international scale. Previously, Kate worked for Michael Baker International on a joint venture with Ogilvy, Resilience Action Partners, supporting FEMA Region 10 and Headquarters Mitigation Planning Program and the National Flood Insurance Program’s Risk MAP Program. She provided subject matter expertise on integrating climate adaptation and hazard mitigation through planning, technical assistance, developing and delivering trainings to a variety of stakeholders, and presenting at conferences and workshop.
Kate specializes in coastal and floodplain management and that increasingly includes considerations for intersecting hazards such as wildfire and other natural disasters, and the land use planning and policy decisions that results in ‘natural events’ becoming ‘disasters’.. She received a BS in Environmental Science from Lynchburg College and an MS in Environmental Studies from the College of Charleston, as well as a graduate Certificate in Urban and Regional Planning from the College of Charleston. She was a NOAA Coastal Management Fellow placed with the Washington State Coastal Program in the Department of Ecology. Through this role she supported the development of guidance for coastal communities to address hazards and sea level rise through the Shoreline Master Program. Following the fellowship, Kate served as Maryland’s CoastSmart Communities Planner, managing the CoastSmart communities grant and other resources supporting local governments address coastal hazards and climate change through planning, technical assistance, and training.
In her spare time, Kate tries to keep up with her standard poodle on trails in the mountains and by the sea. She is currently based in Seaside, OR, on the Ancestral Lands of the Chinook Indian Nation.
