Senior Advocacy and Partnerships Director
Katherine Irene Pettus, PhD
Katherine joined IAHPC in 2014 as a part time Advocacy Officer. As Senior Advocacy and Partnerships Director, her goal is to partner with civil society colleagues and intergovernmental organizations to make IAHPC’S vision of a world free from health-related suffering a reality. To this end, she represents the IAHPC at meetings of the United Nations organizations to ensure inclusion of palliative care (PC) language and availability of essential PC medicines in relevant technical documents, reports, resolutions, and political declarations. Katherine mentors IAHPC members working at the national level to foster leadership and sustainability partnerships for transformative PC service delivery.
Katherine developed an online advocacy course for IAHPC members, speaks at national, regional, and international conferences upon request, writes a monthly newsletter column, and engages on IAHPC social media platforms, amplifying impact where change is happening. Her inspiration comes from interacting with colleagues around the world and accompanying teams on home visits to spread the good news about their work through her writing.
Katherine holds a doctorate in Political Theory from Columbia University, a master’s degree in Health Law and Policy from the University of California San Diego, and an Arts/Law degree from Sydney University. She has an extensive list of publications, including two books, numerous chapters in multi-author collections, and journal articles. She trained in California as a hospice volunteer in 2010, joining the Leadership Development Initiative at the Institute for Palliative Medicine in 2011, and the IAHPC in 2014.
Katherine has three sons and three grandchildren. She enjoys rambling and reading, dividing her time between Taos, New Mexico and Chinchón, Spain.
List of Katherine's selected publications.