Katherine is an MIT-educated aerospace engineer. She served for four years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force, primarily as an engineer working on operational readiness of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. As a PhD student in electrical engineering, Pratt is currently studying the security, ethics, and policy of brain computer interfaces. 

As a scientist with a background in biotechnology, it’s been pretty easy to ignore the role government played in my career. I spent a lot of time as a student, where my energy was best spent studying.

Law or tech - I agonized over this question for my entire college career. I decided tech, and am glad I did.

As someone with a computer science background based in Washington, D.C., I had the fortune of being in the right place at the right time. My core role within civil society has been to lower barriers for non-technical constituencies to engage in policy discussions that have technical implications.  

As technologists, we rarely know the broader societal effects of the technology we build. As we build, we are taught to measure the impact of every change.  But rarely do we spend significant time thinking broadly and critically about the effect of any product on society at large.

Defined by Webster’s as “the opening that a door closes; especially: an entrance.” Life is really a series of doorways or choices. Many of us are defined by our best and worst choices. They can be shining accomplishments or haunt our dreams.