Leadership Team

Kate Thornton serves as the Director of Global Education and the Director of International Outreach at the Hunger Solutions Institute in the College of Human Sciences at Auburn University. Her varied background ranges from business to biochemistry, and she has spent her career developing a passion to connect students with scholars and mentors across various fields to develop sustainable solutions to major global challenges. This is done through teaching classes, but also through leading study abroad programs all over the world. While Kate works in many fields, she has a deep passion to solve problems of hunger and poverty that stems from adopting two of her own children from Ethiopia. Both of her boys were orphaned because of extreme hunger and poverty. Ensuring that doesn’t happen to any other children has become part of her life’s work.