Kathy is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF). She is a strategic thinker, visionary, researcher, and writer whose focus for more than 20 years has been on citizen engagement and legislative capacity, strengthening and technology use in Congress. She has been integral to seminal CMF projects, including the Resilient Democracy Coalition and the Congress 3.0 project, which are considering different aspects of congressional capacity-building and modernization. She was co-creator and lead researcher for the Congress Online Project — through which CMF developed the Gold Mouse Awards for congressional websites and social media practices — and the National Science Foundation-funded Connecting to Congress project. She was also instrumental in envisioning and planning for the Partnership for a More Perfect Union.
Kathy has led a number of contracts with the Congress to develop strategies for legislative information and communications technologies. One of these was an intensive, two-year project to develop a 10-year vision and strategy for technology in the House of Representatives, on which she testified before the Committee on House Administration.
Kathy also co-created the Communicating with Congress project and has authored or contributed to dozens of research reports, publications and articles on Congress, including:
- Job Description for a Member of Congress
- State of the Congress: Staff Perspectives on Institutional Capacity in the House and Senate
- Citizen-Centric Advocacy: The Untapped Power of Constituent Engagement
- Face-to-Face with Congress: Before, During, and After Meetings with Legislators
- #SocialCongress 2015
- 113th Congress Gold Mouse Awards: Best Practices in Online Communications on Capitol Hill
- Life in Congress: Job Satisfaction and Engagement of House and Senate Staff
