Kate received her M.S. in Cultural Foundations of Education and a Certificate of Advanced Study in Disability Studies from the School of Education at Syracuse University in May of 2017. She received her B.A. in History from Hunter College, where she focused on prehistory through the Middle Ages, and religious studies. Kate also has a degree in Fine Arts from Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York, and has worked as a professional cartoonist for publications in Eugene, Oregon.
Kate has a background in antiques, Historic Preservation, archival and genealogical research, and spent three years researching and writing for a Syracuse-based genealogical association about an 18th-century psychiatrically disabled man and his family. She has written professionally about the history of 17th-19th C. Early American women, religion, epidemic disease, disability and psychiatric history, and social reform, with a focus on institutions and asylums. Her more recent scholarship and activism focuses on disability and crime, particularly in d/Deaf communities, prisons, criminal justice, and civil rights. Kate is active in the local Deaf community in Syracuse, and attends meetings about civil rights and criminal justice issues.
Kate is originally from Oregon, where she still visits, and has family in Syracuse going back 100 years on the West End.
Sessions
Access 101: Planning Events with Universal Design
What Is a Disability Cultural Center?