Kate Bartter serves as the executive director of the Sustainability Institute (SI) at The Ohio State University. In this position, she co-leads SI with Faculty Director Elena Irwin. Launched in 2019, SI’s mission is to support, lead and integrate sustainability across the university enterprise, from research to learning opportunities for students to outreach and engagement and campus operations. In its first year, SI attracted over 275 affiliated faculty from 10 Ohio State colleges. In addition, SI has 31 core faculty hired in partnership with 18 different university departments through Ohio State’s Discovery Themes initiative.

As executive director, Kate works with the faculty director to develop strategic priorities and metrics of success for SI. Her role focuses on staff management and providing strategic leadership for SI’s non-academic programs. Kate also manages university sustainability initiatives, such as tracking progress toward meeting Ohio State’s enterprise-wide sustainability goals, guiding the academic collaboration component of the Comprehensive Energy Management Project, and building effective external sustainability partnerships. In addition, she chairs the President and Provost’s Council on Sustainability. Formerly, Kate served as director of Ohio State’s Office of Energy and Environment from 2015-2019.

Prior to joining Ohio State, Kate served as the Chief Policy Advisor and Director of Cabinet Affairs for Ohio Governor Bob Taft. In that capacity, she managed the governor’s policy staff, directed cabinet relations and served as the Governor’s Executive Assistant for Environment and Natural Resources throughout the Taft administration.

Kate also serves on the following boards and commissions: The Great Lakes Protection Fund, The Lake Erie Commission, and the Ohio Chapter of the Nature Conservancy.