Katherine is Assistant Professor of Visual Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research interests center around how communication design artifacts mediate power relationships, with a particular focus on the power implications of data visualization across disciplines. This research focus has led to current projects on ethical data visualization in the digital humanities, efficacy and ethics in big data visualization, and pedagogical research on improving educational strategies related to visualization in the sciences. Katherine also has a broad research interest in improving communication effectiveness in higher education. In her research, teaching, and professional practice, Katherine takes a human-centered approach to communication design, prioritizing understanding of people's lived experience of, and interaction with communication design artifacts.