Kathy earned her AB from Harvard College in 1990, then served for a year as a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, coordinating clinics for those without health insurance. She became a member of UCS over thirty years ago while getting her MPH in Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan. She subsequently worked in HIV/STD prevention research at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Realizing unmitigated climate change would undermine nearly all aspects of public health, she shifted her focus to fighting climate change two decades ago, directing her time, philanthropy and political engagement to this effort. She served as a Senior Partner for Climate Strategies at Betsy Taylor's consulting firm Breakthrough Strategies and Solutions, where she co-led development of multiple rounds of a research- and values-based national climate narrative shared with high-level political leaders, including Governor Jay Inslee. She also helped coordinate multiple letter-writing campaigns from significant political donors calling on select presidential administrations and campaigns to lead boldly on climate, some of which were covered in the New York Times. In a personal capacity, she participated in a Seattle kayaktivist protest of an Arctic-bound Shell oil drilling rig.
Ms. Washienko served as a long-time board member of Pacific Northwest-based Climate Solutions and on the Advisory Board of EarthGen (formerly Washington Green Schools). She was a founding member of the Union of Concerned Scientists' National Advisory Board, where she served for many years on the Executive Committee, including as Chair. She is a member of E8, a cleantech angel investment group, and earned a master's degree in environmental law and policy from Vermont Law and Graduate School in 2023.