Catherine T. “Katie” Hunt, Ph.D. is Former R&D Director, Innovation Sourcing & Sustainable Technologies at The Dow Chemical Company. She has a strong history of building federally-funded, technology partnerships across industry, academia and national labs; partnerships that have successfully delivered innovative solutions. Katie began her career as a senior scientist in analytical research at Rohm and Haas in 1984 after completing an NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship at Yale University. Over her 25 year career with Rohm and Haas, Katie held positions of increasing responsibility and ultimately served as Corporate Sustainability Director and Leader for Technology Partnerships.
Dr. Hunt holds an A.B. in Chemistry (Cum Laude) from Smith College and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Davis. She was the 2007 President of the American Chemical Society (ACS) where she championed education, collaboration and innovation, especially related to the Sustainability of Energy, Food and Water. She is passionate about energy from conserving energy to identifying alternate sources of energy – from championing the RetroFIT Philly project with the City of Philadelphia and the Energy Coordinating Agency (ECA) and working on the SunShot $1-a-Watt Program with leading universities, national labs and the Department of Energy (DOE).
Over professional career Dr. Hunt has served on numerous advisory boards from the MIT Visiting Committee for the Dept. of Chemical Engineering to the National Advisory Group at the Rochester Institute of Technology National Technical Institute for the Deaf (an appointment by the U.S. Secretary of Education) and member of the NSF DeafTEC Visiting Committee, from The Global Cool Cities Alliance with Art Rosenfeld to the Mayor’s Sustainability Advisory Board for the City of Philadelphia. Katie has received numerous awards including, being named one of the “Best 50 Women in Business” in Pennsylvania by then Governor Rendell (2007), receiving the Smith Medal from her alma mater’s Board of Trustees (2008), and being named the Outstanding Alum of the Year by UC Davis (2009). She was in the inaugural class of Fellows for the ACS (2010) and is a Fellow of the AAAS (2009).
Katie is escalating her interest in promoting STEM education to diverse audiences by learning ASL (American Sign Language) and joining the board of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University.
In her spare time she enjoys judging science fairs, mentoring students, practicing yoga, and bicycling with family, friends and clubs - most notably, bicycling across Pennsylvania with Pedal PA!