Kate is the founder of Heartland Intimacy Design & Training, an intimacy training company which offers academic, accessible, and affordable intimacy training entirely online. She has taught several workshops on staging intimacy, as well as designing intimacy for several productions. Her specific area of expertise is staging sexual trauma and assault and how to assist actors in leaving these moments behind in the theatre. Recently, Kate designed the intimacy for the world premiere production of Gertrude and Claudius by Mark St. Germain at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater.

Kate recently completed her Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Missouri. She has two research agendas: theatrical violence and theatrical intimacy. Her dissertation, "Killing Women: Gender and Violence in Selected Works by Sheila Callaghan and Marisa Wegrzyn," examined how performances of violence committed by the characters within Callaghan's and Wegrzyn's works challenge heteronormative notions of gender.



Kate is an Actor Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD). She is also a member of the Association of Movement Theatre Educators (ATME), Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE).



Kate is also a director, primarily directing new student-written work, play reading festivals, and regional semi-professional theatre. She is an Equity Membership Candidate (EMC) with the Actors Equity Association (AEA).