Kate McMahon (E 2017)

Non-Resident Fellow, Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy & Technology

Bio

Kate McMahon is a Non-Resident Fellow with the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy & Technology. She also is a Principal at Valdos Consulting, an analytic firm specializing in engineering economics, workforce and technology assessment, and policy analysis.

Prior to joining Valdos, Kate served as Chief of Staff of the Underwriting & Structuring Division at the U.S. Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office, where she helped deliver $40 billion in conditional commitments and $57 billion in closed loans to energy infrastructure projects and advanced manufacturers through rapid strategic organizational and operational change.

In prior federal positions, Kate played a key role in shaping domestic and international policy on electric vehicles and battery supply chains. At DOE, she led the analysis and the development of a policy architecture for specific tax credit provisions, managed the agency's trade portfolio, evaluated investments, and represented the agency in White House and USTR-led diplomatic negotiations with the EU and South Korea on tax credit development. Kate was also a Research Scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey, where she analyzed critical mineral supply chains and supported the development of supply chain disruption modeling capabilities.

Kate holds an MS in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon, and a BS with honors in Environmental Resource Management from Pennsylvania State University, with minors in Sociology and Environmental Engineering.