Meet IIGE Managing Director Kate Nikolaeva

Hello, UWT Community! My name is Kate Nikolaeva, and I am happy to have joined the Institute for Innovation and Global Engagement as a Managing Director in January 2024. I look forward to supporting the growth of the Global Innovation and Design Lab and our mission of inclusive innovation and project-based learning for students. My door is always open, so please stop by and say hello when you are at Milgard Hall.

In my free time, I take every opportunity to get outdoors. You can find me hiking and backpacking throughout the state, leading hiking and snowshoeing trips for the Mountaineers, and foraging for mushrooms. In 2023, I went on my first overseas backpacking trip. I spent ten days in the Lofoten Islands in Norway. They are located north of the Arctic Circle, and when I visited them in June, the sun never went down. 

In late September, I wrapped up the season by backpacking part of the PCT trail in the Goat Rocks area. It was stunning, and it pushed my limits to know that I prefer not to see the snow outside of my tent, thus leaving winter camping off my outdoor menu, at least for now. I look forward to further exploring WA state and checking out Canada on my feet this year.

Kate joins the IIGE after serving as a Senior Manager at Johnson & Johnson MedTech, where she led a global team in technical implementation and customer success to scale products and systems. Before that, Kate held several roles at Amazon where she led cross-functional teams in launching devices, expanding operations globally, and launching features and tools to help brand owners protect intellectual property and create better a shopping experience on the platform. Kate started her professional career at Corning as a Supply Chain Manager, where she managed international teams, developed supply chains for new products, and implemented an ERP system. Kate brings an interdisciplinary academic background with an MBA in Supply Chain Management (Pennsylvania State University, 2011), M.S. in Chemistry (Bowling Green State University, 2006), and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering (Mendeleyev University of Chemical Technology of Russia, 2004).