Before joining the University of Exeter, Kate worked for twenty years in healthcare as an Audiologist. As well as a BSc (Hons) in Clinical Science (Audiology) studied part-time at University College London, she has an MSc in Rehabilitative Audiology from the University of Bristol.

Over the last ten years, Kate has developed a keen interest in the relevance of a reciprocal relationship with nature on human health and wellbeing. When not working at ECEHH she is a Nature-Based Practitioner (Nature’s Ear) with a focus on Rewilding. Kate also founded Devon Wildland, a landscape-wide nature recovery initiative reaching out to landowners to work collaboratively in the face of the biodiversity crisis.

Kate’s research is exploring Disability and Social Inclusion in Urban Nature. As well as looking at health inequities, she is also researching how disabled people perceive and interact with varied forms of urban nature and how this impacts their lives, in potentially positive and negative ways. ​Kate is also examining how urban areas can be more nature-friendly without disadvantaging disabled people, by talking to disabled people and hearing their lived experiences of living alongside urban nature.

Kate also has a particular interest in rewilding and how people negotiate change and perceptions of control in nature-led landscapes.

Through her work with Nature’s Ear, Kate is fascinated by how people who hear differently experience nature, and what human and non-human aural diversity can teach us about different ways of being in a soundscape, and how by learning from disability knowledges and expertise this can influence us in these times of biodiversity loss.