Katarina has been working with the Community Engagement Unit within North Dakota Health and Human Services (NDHHS) for over three years with a current focus on grant management, collaboration with community organizations, systems and performance, training, events, and youth engagement. She is the state representative and organizer of North Dakota’s Youth Advisory Board and the Health Equity Ambassador Program for ND colleges and universities. She holds her Master of Public Health from the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences with a specialization in Population Health Research and Analytics and a certification in Diversity & Inclusion from Cornell University. Prior to NDHHS, she worked for a non-profit organization that supports individuals with various disabilities for nearly five years before moving into pandemic response and managing the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Science’s COVID-19 contact tracing team until summer 2021. In her current position she has been able to present North Dakota’s youth engagement efforts state-wide and nationally to 100+ fellow grant recipients in all 50 U.S. states and territories, the Center of Disease Control and Prevention, the National Network of Public Health Institutes and many other organizations.