Katie Hawkins-Gaar is a freelance writer and journalism consultant. She co-founded Poynter’s Leadership Academy for Women in Media and later founded Digital Women Leaders, which is now operated by ONA. Katie writes a popular weekly newsletter called My Sweet Dumb Brain and serves on the advisory board for the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism. Katie has freelanced with organizations like the News Revenue Hub, Report for America, and Press Forward, and has written about topics like grief, mental health, and motherhood for national publications including The New York Times, Glamour, Vox, Outside Magazine, Fortune, and more.
Prior to becoming a freelancer, Katie previously worked as the digital innovation faculty at the Poynter Institute, where she launched The Cohort, a newsletter dedicated to women in digital media, and co-founded 40 Better Hours, a project to improve newsroom culture. Prior to Poynter, she was the editor of CNN iReport, overseeing a team of producers responsible for soliciting, verifying, and reporting stories based on audience-submitted news.