Katie Safford

Katie is a Senior Associate for the Measuring Impact II project. In this role, she supports cross-mission learning and the integration of evidence-based learning and decision-making into biodiversity programming at USAID.

Katie brings nearly seven years of experience in global development, focusing on participatory systems research, design, and evaluation. Before joining Environmental Incentives, she worked with the Global Knowledge Initiative (GKI), where she led the Systems Change portfolio. While at GKI, Katie helped USAID and partners analyze complex challenges collectively, envision innovative strategies, and build consensus to achieve results. She also designed and facilitated experiences, workshops, and trainings that fueled conversation and turned insights into evidence-based decisions and digestible learning outputs. Before this, she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uganda, where she developed a training on manufacturing biomass charcoal briquettes made from food and agricultural waste to combat deforestation.

Katie is passionate about utilizing systems approaches to help stakeholders collaborate and learn from each other’s perspectives, thus creating more effective programming, and ultimately happier people.