Kate Bramson joined the WaterFire Board in March of 2023. She brings to the Board her knowledge of economic development and her deep understanding of the role that WaterFire plays in Providence and for Rhode Island.
Kate is the Deputy Executive Director of Sojourner House, the extraordinarily well-respected nonprofit in Rhode Island that works to eliminate domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking. She has lived and worked in Rhode Island for two decades and has transitioned into the nonprofit sector after an award-winning journalism career that included stints in France and Hungary, and in the states of Chicago, Minnesota, and Rhode Island.
She worked as a reporter for 16 years at The Providence Journal, where she focused in her final 7 years on reporting about economic development and workforce issues. She wrote about the 195 Commission’s efforts to develop the vacant land in the heart of the capital city freed up after the relocation of the highway, the collapse of former Red Sox pitching star Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios, then-Governor Gina Raimondo’s economic development priorities, and the complex financing required for the nonprofit WaterFire to transform the long-vacant former U.S. Rubber factory into the WaterFire Arts Center.
Kate left journalism to become the Policy Director for the Rhode Island State Senate, where she led the creation of the Senate’s economic-development legislative package, “Building a More Vibrant Rhode Island.” She has since worked in the nonprofit housing sector and as associate director in the Office of Deputy Dean Megan L. Ranney, while Ranney was at Brown University’s School of Public Health. Kate was drawn to Sojourner House because of the work the organization does with victims and survivors of abuse and because of its expansion into the housing sector — in deep recognition that people cannot escape abusive situations without access to safe, affordable housing.
Bramson lives in Providence with her husband, Andrew Bramson, and their two teenagers. Together, they’ve traveled extensively — quite often selecting destinations that are off the beaten path, including Uzbekistan, Myanmar, Oman, the Roman ruins in Algeria, and Ukraine six years ago, where they spent three days in Chornobyl.
