Katie Gourley's work as an urban planner, researcher, and creative practitioner is grounded in the relationships between communities, ecologies, and food systems. She has a background in urban agriculture and local food systems and works to create systems that build community, and cultivate conditions for radical care, justice, and well being. In May 2019, she received her Masters in Urban Planning with Distinction from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and her Thesis on community seed libraries and grassroots movements to preserve biodiversity, cultural traditions, and ecological knowledge was the recipient of the Harvard Urban Planning and Design Thesis Prize.  Katie's personal artistic practices combine her lifelong passion for baking and creating experiences around shared food with a sustained interest in bio-cultural diversity and place-based social justice. She is a collector of recipes, heirloom beans, poems about food, and visions of feminist utopias. Her first degree is in English Literature and she has worn many different hats in the food and agriculture world as a baker, cheesemonger, farmers market manager, and culinary educator.