After graduating from William and Mary, Katherine attended Durham University in northern England and received her master’s degree in the Conservation of Historic Objects. For five years she was an Assistant Conservator at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois where she was responsible for the conservation of artifacts going on loan to other institutions and couriered them around the country and the world. Next, she moved back to her home state of Virginia to take a position as the Fine and Decorative Arts Conservator for George Washington’s Mount Vernon. She spent six and a half years there and then made the move to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources in Richmond, Virginia to be their conservator. She has served there since early 2013, becoming a Fellow in the AIC and the State Archaeological Conservator; working with professionals and the public around the Commonwealth to promote the preservation of the State’s rich cultural heritage and working to conserve the roughly 7 million artifacts that belong to Virginia. She led the team that opened the containers found under the Robert E. Lee Monument on Monument Avenue and is senior editor for the book The Buried Cause: Unearthing hidden history in the Lee Monument cornerstone available through UVA Press.