Kate Westaby is a research associate in the Income and Benefits Policy Center at the Urban Institute. She conducts mixed-methods and community-engaged research. Her research explores college opportunity, well-being, and dignity for young parents by building trusting and participatory, mixed-methods research partnerships with other young parents. She started the Young Parent Collective, a group of young and teen parents who research and advocate for issues related to young parenting. At Urban, Westaby primarily works on supporting access and persistence for parenting students in college. This includes partnering with the founding team members of the Student-Parent Action through Research Knowledge Collaborative.

Westaby has worked as an evaluation researcher for more than a decade, evaluating programs in health and education. She received a BS in psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire and an MS in applied psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Stout. She is a doctoral candidate in educational leadership and policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.