Kate grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana. Growing up, she enjoyed spending time outside, playing the piano, and fishing with her dad. After a family trip to Utah, Kate decided that she wanted to live closer to the mountains and have more opportunities to pursue her hobbies outdoors. This lead to her decision to attend BYU in Provo where she studied exercise physiology and business. Kate developed a love for backpacking and hiking which is what she spent most of her free time outside of class doing.

Kate has always felt a lot of fulfillment helping people and building relationships with them. Most of the jobs she worked in high school and college involved helping people in some capacity which brought her lots of joy. After finishing college, Kate found herself unhappy with her job working in a chemistry lab due to the lack of human interaction and being inside all day. Kate decided to seek out work that paired her love for helping others with her love for the outdoors hoping that it would bring her more fulfillment. 

Kate decided to try working at an outdoor therapy program in Utah. Initially, she planned on staying there for only a few months, but quickly fell in love with the work she was doing and stayed there for a little over two years. During those two years, Kate spent the majority of her time working in the neurodivergent program with adolescent girls. She quickly developed a passion for working with neurodivergent youth and utilizing the outdoors as a setting to help them grow and build self efficacy. Kate came to work at Elements in 2023 with hopes of continuing her work with neurodivergent adolescents in an outdoor setting. Since coming to Elements, Kate has enjoyed spending most of her time working in the Eclipse program, Element’s neurodivergent program.

Kate hopes to continue to work with neurodivergent individuals and find ways to support them. She plans on eventually attending graduate school for occupational therapy. On her off shifts, Kate enjoys backpacking, skiing, and has recently been getting into knitting – though she’s not very good at it yet.