Kate Chester

Kate Chester is the Communications Program Director at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, where she leads a team of three with oversight of content development, digital communications and event management. A talented and innovative leader with more than 30 years of experience, Kate has led communications and public relations in television entertainment in Los Angeles, and in healthcare and higher education in Portland, Oregon. Most recently, she served as the senior director of communications and community engagement at Portland Community College, Oregon’s largest postsecondary institution serving approximately 50,000 students.

Kate’s areas of expertise include strategic communications, media relations, freelance writing, crisis communications, board relations, and community relations. She has a deep interest in conflict resolution and peace education; after participating in the Kroc Institute’s 2010 Summer Institute, Kate earned a second master’s degree in Conflict Resolution and International Peace Studies from Portland State University. This led to her participation in a research project in the divided country of Cyprus in September 2019, where she helped facilitate a half-day peace education workshop with Greek and Turkish Cypriots, followed by interviews with peace educators and activists in both communities over two weeks.

Kate graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a bachelor’s in Government and International Studies, followed by a master’s in Public Relations from the School of Journalism at the University of Southern California. She is currently pursuing her doctorate at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, analyzing peace education projects in Cyprus since the country’s split in 1974. In June 2022, Kate presented on systems thinking and peace education projects in Cyprus as part of "Religion and Culture in Conflict and Peace: Impact in Reconciliation and Peacebuilding," an annual conference hosted at the University of Winchester in England.