Katelyn Noland is the strategic communication specialist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Dam and Levee Safety and Section 408 Programs. In this role, Noland is responsible for leading the direction of communication and supports development of policy, resources, and training that support successful communication and engagement activities. Prior to this position, Noland was a social scientist, most recently with the USACE Levee Safety Center where she first got engaged in the Dam and Levee Safety Programs and identifying opportunities to tell the story of these structures and support internal staff in creating conversations about dams, levees, and flood risk management. Noland spent a majority of her USACE career to date working at the Institute for Water Resources (IWR), which is a forward-looking policy office part of USACE. While part of IWR, Noland supported a variety of mission areas with communication, writing, facilitation, policy, and program management support including flood risk management, emergency management, navigation, and other research related activities. Noland joined USACE in 2012 through the Pathways Program. She was a graduate student at George Mason University at the time pursuing a Master of Arts in english, professional writing and rhetoric. Noland completed her degree in 2014, which included a thesis study where she examined risk communication within USACE and how organizational definitions of risk affect interactions with audiences and communication design. Noland completed her undergraduate study at Virginia Tech 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and creative writing.