Laura "Kati" Corlew is a Project Assistant with the Pacific Regional Integrated Science and Assessment (Pacific RISA) program at the East-West Center, which supports Pacific islands and coastal communities as they plan for and adapt to climate variability and change. She is involved with building collaborations across disciplines and with community decision-makers and stakeholders, especially through accessible dissemination of project findings and materials. Prior to joining the East-West Center, Ms. Corlew worked with the Culturally Responsive Response to Intervention (RTI) project at the Center on Disability Studies, developing teaching strategies that are culturally responsive to students of Native Hawaiian ancestry. She spent four years as a full-time volunteer with the Claretian Volunteers in Chicago, working as an HIV prevention educator, a social services advocate for families and individuals who are homeless or impoverished, and a youth worker with gang and gang-affiliated youth.
Ms. Corlew is currently pursuing her PhD in Community and Cultural Psychology at the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa. Her dissertation research explores the threat of climate change to both land and culture in the Pacific Island Developing Country (PIDC) of Tuvalu. Her Master's thesis explored cultural and community values as motivators for community activism during the 2007 Superferry protests in Kauai.