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Katie Gilbert

Katie Gilbert has taught math for seventeen years at Kirtland Central High School in Kirtland, New Mexico.  She claims working with Algebra students is just as rewarding as working with Calculus students.  With an active interest in water education as well, Ms. Gilbert spends her time outside the classroom advocating for tribal water rights as a water commissioner for her tribe, appointed by the Speaker of the Navajo Nation Tribal Council.  She works with the tribal council, the local communities, and the tribe’s water attorneys, hydrologists, geologists, and water resources.  She is involved in negotiations with state and federal officials in New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona for the Navajo Nation’s rights to use waters in the Colorado River Basin.  Before her appointment as commissioner, she spent summers assisting in research in a range of fields of science at U.S. DOE Laboratories--the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.