Katy joined Burness in July 2005 and is an associate vice president. A writer, editor and media strategist, Katy continues to garner high-level global news coverage for nonprofit organizations and foundations—both in the U.S. and around the world. Domestically, she has led communications campaigns for the Afterschool Alliance, the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, Adult Vaccine Access Coalition, the Center for Sharing Public Health Services, the Kansas Reading Roadmap, and several Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grantees, particularly related to childhood obesity prevention, nutrition and healthy school meals.
Globally, she regularly delivers successful media and digital strategies for organizations such as the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, Aeras, TB Alliance, Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund, and Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC). Katy’s particular passion lies in gender equality and women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights and she’s been fortunate at Burness to work with organizations leading these efforts, including the International Partnership for Microbicides, Marie Stopes International, the International Women’s Health Coalition, and the Global Early Adolescent Study—a partnership between the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the World Health Organization and other institutions around the world.
A proud stickler for grammar and the AP Stylebook, Katy also manages and co-leads Burness’ copyediting team.
Prior to joining Burness, she was involved in medical campus organizing around issues of environmental health and nuclear non-proliferation at Physicians for Social Responsibility, an editorial assistant at Thomson Physicians World, a staff writer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, and a disc jockey for WMHC 91.5 FM in South Hadley, Massachusetts. She graduated magna cum laude from Mount Holyoke College in western Massachusetts, where she studied psychology and film studies. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Katy lives in South Jersey with her husband, son and basset hound Kodak.