Katharine founded the Legalization Project, which mobilizes support, resources, and expertise for immigrants seeking permanent legal status in the United States. Under the Legalization Project, Katharine oversees the Bay Area DACA Initiative, $19M initiative that aims to legalize at least 40% of the 20,000 DACA recipients in the San Francisco Bay Area over the next four years. She also provides strategic advice to Path2Papers, a new legal entity housed at Cornell Law School that helps DACA recipients pursue work visas and other pathways to legal permanent residency, the Movement Resilience Fund (housed at the Four Freedoms Fund), and other legalization efforts nationwide.Prior to The Legalization Project, Katharine served as the founding executive director of Immigrants Rising, a national nonprofit that empowers undocumented people to get an education, pursue their careers, and build a brighter future for themselves and their communities. During her 17-year tenure at Immigrants Rising, Katharine raised over $40 million for the undocumented community, including $10 million that was reinvested as grants, stipends, and fellowships to undocumented individuals. She was the leader of a visionary team that created numerous initiatives, including the $14.4 million California Campus Catalyst Fund, which bolstered systemic support for undocumented students at 32 public colleges and universities throughout California, and the $7.41 million SEED Initiative, which supported over 1,000 immigrant entrepreneurs in California. Throughout her career, Katharine has worked to enhance arts, career, and education opportunities for low-income people of color. She has developed innovative programs in schools, housing projects, and detention facilities. Her work with young people has been highlighted in college textbooks, literary anthologies, magazines, and national newspapers, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Pod Save America, Harvard Educational Review, PRI’s The World, KQED, San Francisco Chronicle, and Fast Company.Katharine was born and raised in San Francisco, and she received her BA from Yale University and MFA from the University of Oregon. She is the proud descendant of Chinese immigrants, who first came to the U.S. in the 1860s to work in the gold mines of California and later during the restrictive Chinese Exclusion Acts. She lives in San Francisco and Monte Rio, CA.