Kate is Associate Professor of International Relations. Before her appointment at Victoria University of Wellington, she was an Economic and Social Research Council Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews, where she also completed her PhD.

Her work falls at the intersection between critical theory and international ethics. At the postgraduate level, she teaches War and its Aftermath, which uses an experience of war framework to examine how war shapes human bodies, human lives, and human societies. At the undergraduate level, she teaches Critical Global Politics, which draws on the work of key critical theorists to examine oppression, vulnerability, emancipation and resistance.

Kate has won several teaching awards, including the Te Whatu Kairangi Aotearoa Tertiary Educator Award (2023), Victoria University Teaching Excellence Award (2022), the British International Studies Association Award for Distinguished Excellence in Teaching (2022), and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences 'Most Popular Lecturer' Victorias Award (2011).