Katie Watkins

Katie Watkins is a senior reporter at Houston Public Media where she covers environmental issues in Greater Houston. She has reported on environmental injustices, toxic waste sites, conservation and the impacts of climate change on the region. She also loves quirky science stories about what makes our natural environmental unique, wonderful and weird. 

Katie co-reported and hosted Fire Triangle, an award-winning limited series podcast looking at chemical disasters in Texas. Her work has appeared on NPR, Marketplace, Here & Now, Living on Earth, The Guardian, and National Geographic.

Originally from sunny San Diego, Katie went back East for college, graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a major in Communication and Public Service and a minor in Hispanic Studies. She then moved to Santiago, Chile, where she worked as a reporter for four years covering business, architecture and culture. (She also learned Spanish and ate lots of empanadas.) She moved back to the US to get her M.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University, with a focus on magazine and audio storytelling.