Katie has worked as an avian educator since 1997, when she began giving presentations with parrots for a small company in Pennsylvania. In 2012 she co-founded the Avian Conservation Center of Appalachia in Morgantown, WV, and now serves as its Executive Director. She is also the author of the books Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird and Cerulean Blues: A Personal Search for a Vanishing Songbird. Her first word was "bird."