Kate Sweater, MS, LC is the design principle of the lighting fixture studio Dwaal, and a founding member of the acoustics and lighting design collaborative Inter. Kate has been working in the field of lighting for over a decade, with experience in architectural lighting design, fixture design & engineering and lighting research into lighting technologies and human factors, in the United States and Europe.

She holds a Master of Science in Architectural Sciences (Lighting) from the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a Bachelors of Fine Art (Furniture) from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Kate has published papers on many aspects of human vision and lighting. She has created healthy and efficient lighting design plans for a senior center, written documents to help owners of low-income housing facility to upgrade to LED lighting, and has designed and created lighting fixtures for the State Capitol building in Albany. She helped to develop a testing protocol for off-grid LED lighting for communities in Africa and India. Kate’s work focuses on design for positive change.

She is currently teaching in a part-time faculty position at The New School, Parsons’ School of Constructed Environments. She has been a guest critic at Parsons/The New School and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Architecture Department.