Katie has gathered and galvanized diverse communities in changing neighborhoods in San Francisco and Los Angeles by creating spaces to share and create food, music, art, and theatre. The institutions she has worked with have bridged and integrated the new and old by honoring and respecting existing communities, from feeding delicious food to homeless veterans and caring for the elderly to providing artistic opportunities and a safe place for teens in underserved communities. Through her board work and parent involvement at Los Angeles Family School and Sequoyah, she has championed the role that food and garden can play in building community.

Katie’s academic foundation includes a degree in philosophy from UC Berkeley and coursework in chemistry at USC. She is excited for the opportunity to develop an integrated food and garden curriculum at Sequoyah that will fortify our sense of place and identity by honoring existing food traditions, as well as creating new ones. Some of these include harvesting and curing olives in the fall, making peach and apricot preserves, and maybe even BBQ sauce in the spring, and collaborating with students as we learn to use the new cob oven.

Katie lives in Highland Park with her husband, three kids, and two cats.