Catherine Chiabaut
Catherine Chiabaut comes to Davis from the world of philanthropy, where she spent the last eight years working for the Robertson Foundation on K-12 education issues. She most recently designed and led the Foundation's literacy strategy, focused on improving the teaching of reading and writing for students ages four to fourteen. As part of this work, she managed the Foundation's series of investments in New York City across district and higher education initiatives, and supported the development of new curriculum and AI tools intended to expand access to enriching and evidence-aligned literacy instruction, with a specific focus on supporting multilingual learners.
Prior to philanthropy, Catherine completed her Ph.D. in French at Yale, where she was a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) fellow. Her thesis examined the representation of human hermaphroditism in eighteenth-century France, with a focus on the works of Rousseau, Diderot, Casanova, and the Marquis de Sade. While in graduate school, she was a founding executive member of Yale's first student-led organization dedicated to helping graduate students in the humanities and social sciences connect to non-academic jobs. She holds a B.A. in French and Philosophy from McGill University. A California transplant since 2021, Catherine sits on the board of the Oakland Literacy Coalition. She lives in Vacaville with her husband, Conor, and her two dogs, George and Tim Riggins.