On her return to the United States, she joined the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) where she has held a number of senior positions. As Associate Assistant Administrator in the Bureau for Policy and Program Coordination, she led policy development in: economics, private sector development, population and health, rural development, agriculture, democracy and governance and human rights. She served as senior policy advisor on conflict prevention, mitigation and peace building in the Office of the Administrator. Her most recent position at USAID was Director of the Office of Women in Development where for ten years she served as the Agency’s senior expert on gender and development and as the coordinator of USAID’s anti-human trafficking activities. She has traveled and worked in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. Since 2012, Katherine Blakeslee has been seconded from USAID to the National Academies of Science, Institute of Medicine where she is focused on global violence prevention and child exploitation for commercial sex and labor.
Katherine Blakeslee and her daughter are graduates of Wellesley College.
In addition to her international work, she is a watercolorist and Member-at-Large on the Board of the Foundry Gallery, a cooperative artist gallery in Washington DC.
