Kate completed her Professional Doctorate in Educational Psychology at University College Dublin. She is committed to enhancing the wellbeing of children and their families through adopting family-centred, strength-based and evidence-informed practice. 

Kate obtained her BA in Psychology from Trinity College Dublin, and subsequently completed an MSc in Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Psychological Practice at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with a distinction.

Kate has worked with children and young people presenting with a wide range of needs in a variety of settings. Prior to commencing her doctoral training, Kate worked as a camp counsellor, a tutor of Autistic children, a teacher in an international school, as well as a playworker in a charity service which supports children and young people with disabilities. During her doctoral training, she completed placements with a HSE Primary Care Child Psychology Service, a HSE Child Disability Service, the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS), and a third level education setting. 

Kate has experience conducting cognitive, adaptive, play-based and diagnostic assessments, as well as social, emotional and behavioural screeners. Kate has provided therapeutic interventions such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Solution Focused Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Compassion Focused Therapy. 

For the past two years, Kate has been working as a fieldworker with Children’s School Lives, a longitudinal cohort study of primary schools in Ireland. She has also worked as a research assistant in the Family Health Lab, University of California, Santa Barbara as well as in the University of Edinburgh, where she examined the effectiveness of a school-based body image intervention. Her doctoral research explored the wellbeing of students with intellectual disabilities attending a special school.