Dr. Katharine Thompson

Dr. Katharine Thompson is a socio-ecological scientist who studies how people make decisions to find safety and stability within systems that produce both resilience and harm. Using in-depth interviews, large-scale surveys, and participatory systems mapping, she untangles the complex relationships between people and nature in precarious landscapes. Her work asks: where do public health and conservation policies fail to capture lived realities, and how can we center the experience of families to source solutions for a changing world?

She received her PhD in 2022 from the Department of Anthropology at Stony Brook University. She is an Assistant Research Professor of Human Health and African Studies at Penn State University and Research Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Stony Brook University. She holds an appointment with the Research and Innovation for the Serengeti Ecosystem program through the Grumeti Fund. Dr. Thompson’s research has received competitive support from the National Science Foundation, Conservation International, Re:wild, and other leading organizations.

She is a member of The Explorers Club, a Launchpad Fellow Emeritus at The Safina Center, and a McCormack Family Trust Fellow. Over fifteen years of work in the same Tanzanian community, she founded the Amani Foundation in the United States and co-founded Amani Initiatives in Tanzania to translate social science research into applied solutions for the most pressing social and ecological challenges in the region. Through Amani, Dr. Thompson advances regenerative agriculture, community-based care practices, and women-led livelihoods designed to strengthen family resilience while reducing ecological pressure. Because her research and intervention occur in the same landscapes, her work explores socio-ecological feedback loops in real time, linking conservation science, public health, and child wellbeing.

As an artist, she uses scientific illustration and sequential art to narrate changing biodiversity and make visible the lived experience of harm within complex systems. She collaborates with the Wild Wonder Foundation to integrate nature journaling into community-based learning in Tanzania. She has worked in partnership with organizations such as Centre ValBio, Primate Conservation International, and The Safina Center.