Kate Westaby is a senior research associate in the Work, Education, and Labor Division at the Urban Institute. She specializes in mixed-methods and community-participatory research, with a focus on young parents in education, health, and economic mobility. Her work centers on college opportunity, well-being, and dignity for young and student parents, with additional expertise in student basic needs and child care in higher education. Westaby builds trusting, participatory research partnerships with young parents and is the founding director of the Young Parent Collective, a group of young and teen parents who research and advocate for issues related to parenting. At Urban, Westaby primarily works on supporting access and persistence for parenting students in college, including through her role as a founding team member of the Student-Parent Action through Research Knowledge Collaborative.

Westaby has more than 15 years of experience as an evaluation researcher, assessing programs in health education and workforce. She received a BS in psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, an MS in applied psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Stout, and a PhD in educational leadership and policy analysis from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.