She is engaged in design research at the boundary, both within engineering and beyond, and is actively working on the development and application of formal design theories to civil, environmental, and urban engineering. Kate is the Director of the KAIST Freshman Design Program, which earned her both the KAIST Grand Prize for Creative Teaching and the Republic of Korea Ministry of Education, Science and Technology Award for Innovation in Engineering Education in 2009. She also received the Grand Prize at the 2009 International Conference on Axiomatic Design Theory for her paper on the synthesis of formal design theories for traffic intersections. She received a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).