Katie was a curious, hard-working kid, but it wasn't until her freshman year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that she found her calling. That year, she happened to be placed in two geography classes, and her career trajectory started falling into place.
Katie McMahon is now a PhD student in human environment geography at UC Santa Barbara, and her recent work in Science Advances shows that children who were exposed to high humid heat in utero were significantly more likely to have stunted growth years later, as compared to those who experienced only high heat. Her research looks at the "intersections of climate & environmental change, social vulnerability, human health, and food & water security," and her next project will investigate how heat affects the health of farm workers in the Salinas Valley in California.
Listen to this episode to learn more about Katie's journey, as well as what's ahead for her!