Kathleen was an Intern with Matū through the Momentum Programme, working with the research team. She is now an Associate with Even Capital, an NZ venture capital fund focused on women-led businesses.

Born and raised in New York, Kathleen received her Bachelor of Science in Biology with minors in Business and Neuroscience from the State University of New York at Albany. She began her scientific career researching developmental neuroendocrinology during her undergraduate degree and continued in the field of neuroscience by contributing to the connectome and projectome projects at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York. Kathleen moved to New Zealand in 2019 to pursue her PhD in Biochemistry, investigating novel molecules as therapeutic targets of colorectal cancer at the University of Otago, Dunedin. Her PhD research contributed in part to the foundation of New Zealand’s first RNA-based cancer therapeutics company, Amaroq Therapeutics.

Outside of her academic pursuits, Kathleen is an active member of the Otago Momentum Investment Committee. She is a lifelong equestrian, former competitive weightlifter, and is passionate about health and wellbeing.