When she isn't teaching, she is working on projects using the Green Bank Telescope, a radio telescope run by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, to study emission from gas in star forming regions. She is trying to understand how young, massive stars influence their surroundings and whether they cause new generations of stars to form. She is also just starting a project in collaboration with the Milky Way Project team. MWP is a citizen science project, where participants identify objects of interest in survey data. She's starting a project using the identifications of “Yellowballs,” which likely represent an early stage of massive star formation. Scientists are trying to figure out exactly what the “Yellowballs” are, and how they are influencing their surroundings. Katie is an awesome example of a great Idaho woman scientist.