Dr. Katie Kearns has interests and expertise in supporting graduate students’ development, including:
- Identity development and integration of personal and professional identities
- Well-being
- Mentoring
- Post-PhD career exploration
She currently works as Collections Specialist for Professional Development Hub (pd|hub), serving as a pedagogical coach and community of practice facilitator for PhD career coaches testing professional development curricula at 20 universities and research institutes. She also contributes to pd|hub’s assessment and evaluation projects.
She is also pursuing an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) credential with ICF.
She has co-led Transforming Your Research Into Teaching, a workshop-based community on course design for graduate students and postdocs, with Dr. Darren Hoffmann and members of the CIRTL Network since 2019.
She has held leadership responsibilities with the POD Network and the CIRTL Network.
Read more about Dr. Kearns’ professional activities on her Biography page.
Previous professional activities
Dr. Katie Kearns has taught a graduate pedagogy course in the School of Education at Indiana University. From 2019-2013, she worked at Indiana University in the University Graduate School as Assistant Vice Provost for Student Development from 2019-2023. From September 2005 to December 2018, Dr. Kearns worked as an instructional consultant at Indiana University. At the time she joined, the office was called Instructional Support Services and has since been reorganized and named the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. Her interests with graduate students included:
- Experiences of systematically marginalized graduate students as teachers
- Learning communities for graduate students
- Scholarship of teaching and learning
She was a lecturer of biology and instructional lab director at Boston University from Jan 2000 to August 2005.
She earned a PhD in ecology from the University of Georgia (2000) and a BS in biology from Cornell University (1995).
Katie Kearns 