Kate Hamilton

Kate Hamilton is a Senior Program Manager at the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program, where she supports cross-institutional partnerships aimed at improving transfer student success. Through initiatives such as the Aspen-AASCU Transfer Student Success Intensive, Kate works closely with university presidents and higher education practitioners—at the local and statewide levels—to guide the development of clear, sustainable pathways for community college students to earn bachelor’s degrees. 

Before joining Aspen, Kate led faculty development programming at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and founded a cross-institutional working group to translate learning sciences research into pedagogical practice. She also supported large-scale course redesign for a new general education curriculum at Boston University. A former instructor, Kate taught undergraduate courses in literature, art history, and first-year writing at Carnegie Mellon University and, as a postdoctoral associate, coached faculty and graduate students through the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence. 

Kate holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Literary and Cultural Studies from Carnegie Mellon University, with a focus on eighteenth-century British literature, and a B.A. in English Language and Literature from the University of Connecticut.