Dr. Kate Pate is a neurophysiologist, downhill mountain bike junkie, entrepreneur, and yogi. Her research career began over 16 years ago, borne out of a fascination with the brain, but specifically the brain-body-breath connection. Kate never does anything half-heartedly, so an initial fascination ultimately led to her pursuing a PhD in Physiology, studying the neural control of breathing.
Following the completion of her graduate studies, Kate eagerly traded in the swampy flatlands of Florida for the rocky peaks of Colorado and embarked upon a whirlwind research career, investigating everything from neurotrauma to arthritis to cancer and radiation biology. This is the part of her story where she also fell in love with mountain biking. Because Kate is passionate about teaching, it was no surprise that she eventually wound up being called “Professor” at a school of medicine, sharing her love of all things medical with some our nation’s future doctors.
A few years later, Kate was recruited by an aerospace startup to help with a military medical project, which eventually led to her becoming the Director of Combat Casualty Care, tasked with creating innovative solutions to address the critical gaps in military medicine. For the past four years Kate has been working in this field, studying everything from trauma medicine to human performance to mental health. One of her favorite current projects involves identifying technologies that can be used to effectively track and optimize the health and performance of our service members.
As things always seem to come full circle, she now finds herself going back to her (research) roots and revisiting her fascination with the brain-body-breath connection, applying what she’s learned from both the scientific literature and her personal experience to the field of human performance. When not geeking out over research, you can find Kate on the trails, on her yoga mat, or on her meditation cushion with her dog, Miles. He meditates, too.
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