Meet The Board: Dr. Kate Wolin

Meet Dr. Kate Wolin, an accomplished behavioral epidemiologist, entrepreneur, and investor, brings over 20 years of experience in implementing effective health behavior change solutions. Forbes recognized her as a leading innovator reshaping the healthcare landscape. With extensive experience in both academic and commercial domains, she plays a vital role in integrating evidence-based approaches with commercial ventures. Currently serving as a partner at PACE Healthcare Capital, Dr. Wolin advises various organizations on integrating behavioral science into product strategies to drive adoption and improve user engagement. She is also an esteemed board member at Prismatic, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering Chicago's youth.

Why is Prismatic’s mission critical to you? 

I love the Prismatic mission. But what I love most about participating in Prismatic are the students. Getting to getting to see and interact with the young people is just really delightful. And they're inspiring, so that gets me excited to do the things that we do. 

I mean, I love our board and the team at Prismatic. They're wonderful. But we show up because we believe in the young people and what they're doing.

We're looking for people equally committed to developing leadership skills, and resiliency in the workforce and the community around us. We are also seeking partners, companies and corporations, that are committed to developing our community and helping us build this.

What is one of your most memorable experiences with Prismatic? 

It was an Ask Me Anything session during the pandemic. I was an anthropology major, which is one of those things that, you know, my family growing up, they're like, you go to school to become a doctor or a lawyer or something that will make you professionally successful. 

So when I told my parents I was going to be an anthropology major, they were like, “A what?! To do what?.” However, in talking to the students about how I loved being an anthropology major I used that in my next job, which was to do a lot of work on health disparities.

Just seeing for them that you could have a job, you could have a major in college that you loved and more passionate about, you got excited to go to class, which, let's be clear, if I had been a chemistry major, I would not have been excited to go to class. 

I could still end up doing really interesting and impactful things in healthcare, and it didn't have to be exactly what I did right out of college. There were just these moments in that session of seeing these students think about, “Oh, I don't have to have a major; that is a job. I didn't have to be an anthropology major and become an anthropologist.”

There were just these moments of watching that click for students, particularly because I think there were a number of students in that session who, like me, had an interest in health but maybe had a similar to my background, the exposure they'd had is a very limited number of things you can do in healthcare, you could be a doctor, you could be a nurse, maybe a physical therapist or a phlebotomist, but that there's this really broad range of careers in health care that one could have. They just hadn't been exposed to it. 

I remember being that high school student who hadn't had that exposure. And just this aha moment that I had much, much later in my life. Being able to watch them have that moment is like, yes, I have saved someone else maybe 10 minutes of frustration in life, hopefully more. You know, it's just, it's really rewarding.

Why is it essential to teach EQ skills to young adults? 

EQ is the thing that allows us to navigate, like, when things go wrong, right, and things always go wrong. They don't exactly ever go according to plan, whether it's on a big scale in life, or you know, a small scale, like a project goes off the rails, and the people in the teams who have the skills to sort of separate their response from their reaction and navigate that are the ones who really I think are successful.

What are you most excited about working with Prismatic? 

The ability to have an impact. Regardless of the student's academic success to date or what they intend to do after high school, it just makes the reach and the potential impact for Prismatic much, much broader. 

It's not about college success only or job skills training only, it's about whatever path those students choose that they're going to have the ability to be successful in it.

involved with Prismatic? 

Prismatic is about Chicago, and certainly, we do programming outside of Chicago, but really, at our core, Prismatic is about Chicago. Chicago is a place that is about building and thinking differently and not being constrained by what you've seen around you. 

So I think the organizations or individuals who really lean into that part of Chicago's history, who realize that Chicago is at its best when all of Chicago is at its best, and the opportunity to build talent in different neighborhoods, I think that translates into wanting to build the community around you.

Join us in shaping the future. Find out how you can get involved with Prismatic’s Turning Point Fund.