Katie Cheney

Currently a Gender Integration Specialist II with EnCompass LLC, Katie Cheney specializes in gender and women’s empowerment, HIV/AIDS, capacity building and organizational development, and private sector engagement. Her gender-focused support to various USAID contracts include supporting child protection protocol implementation for an evaluation tracking gender-based violence, contraceptive security, and integrating gender empowerment principles into project design. As Communications Manager for First Peoples Worldwide, an Indigenous small-grants organization, Ms. Cheney led the organization’s communications program, and as Field Associate conducted a culturally-appropriate needs assessment with the Central Kalahari Game Reserve’s Indigenous San population. Katie has an M.S. in International Development from Tulane University’s Payson Center for International Development and a B.A. from Pennsylvania State University, where she majored in Anthropology and minored in Women’s Studies and Religious Studies. Her academic background in women’s studies included independent field research on socio-political and economic freedoms of Eastern European women before and after State Socialism.