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Kate Kragness, PhD

@kkrabgrass

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Iowa City ✪ MedChem PhD ✪ 🐹 ✪ Salsa/Bachata ✪ UC Irvine-Purdue University-Pike HS Alum
When it rains, you get wet ◝(๑꒪່౪̮꒪່๑)◜
📷 @imtakingyourpicture

POSTS STORIES REELS

I had like 3 genres of Halloween this year 💀 by @kkrabgrass

This Hispanic Heritage Month, I’ve been looking through old family photos and reflecting on where we came from, how far we’ve come, and the stories that connect generations.

My family originally lived on land that was a part of Mexico and later became Texas following the Mexican-American War in 1848.

In the 1950s and 1960s, migrant farm work brought us back and forth between South Texas and the Midwest (Michigan/Wisconsin/Minnesota). Eventually, my grandma became the first in our family to pursue higher education when she was accepted into a nursing program. She went on to serve the growing migrant worker communities in rural Minnesota and North Dakota, communities that she had once been a part of herself.

I’m incredibly proud of my mixed heritage, with both Chicana/Tejana and Scandinavian roots. Through the stories passed down in my family, I’ve learned about the people who came before me; people who worked hard, endured adversity, and built lives for themselves and their families in places that did not always value them.

And while my family’s story is uniquely ours, the themes are not. I’ve met so many people whose stories echo these same experiences: leaving behind what is familiar, working incredibly hard, building something better for themselves and their family, and carrying the sacrifices of those who came before them.

My family has been in the United States since 1848, and our history includes enduring racism, violence, and oppression alongside resilience, perseverance, and hope. Those stories are not just history. They are still being lived today.

The photos shown here span more than a century, from the 1890s through the 2020s. by @kkrabgrass

I think I’m the only one that thinks it’s funny and ironic that I’m studying eyes in Iowa

👁️wa by @kkrabgrass

Here’s to the next chapter where the work continues. Beyond excited to start as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Iowa!

Thank you to @__ssphoto for capturing this milestone. 🤍📸

#SACNISTAgrad by @kkrabgrass

Some of the stats by @kkrabgrass

“Strawberry Baby Scars” is published in the 27th issue of PLEXUS, in the UC Irvine School of Medicine’s Journal of Medical Humanities & Arts.

This year’s theme, mosaic, is meant to reflect how medicine extends beyond clinical definitions and is shaped by lived experience, memory, and the often invisible narratives we carry that influence our relationship with healthcare and healing. To me, this piece is my visual story of diagnosis, treatment, and scar reduction (1999-2011) over a self portrait (2026).

Happy vascular birthmark awareness month!
#hemangioma #strawberryhemangioma #strawberrybaby #vascularbirthmark #putonyourbirthmark by @kkrabgrass

I became Dr. Kragness on 4/20!

THESIS DEDICATION

To my family, friends, and mentors who walked beside me, even when I could not see the road
ahead and could not tell them where I was going.

“We do this not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy.”

What began as ambition became endurance. What once felt overwhelming became growth. And
what once felt impossible is now finished. by @kkrabgrass

My piece “I drew the mechanism wrong” was selected to be in the UCI AHUA Cultivating Dreamscapes 2026 Exhibition!

The work is inspired by an experience during my undergraduate while taking organic chemistry. After studying with classmates for an exam, I fell asleep and dreamed of reaction mechanisms, arrow pushing, electron flow, and product formation unfolding in real time. In this dream, I realized that we had solved a practice problem wrong. I woke up immediately and fixed the mistake. It remains the only time I have ever dreamed in the language of a subject I was studying.

If you didn’t recognize them, @cody_loy45 and Tim were my portrait models by @kkrabgrass

My time has come. I’ll be defending my PhD thesis on April 20th at 1:00 PM (PST) in NSII 2201 (and on zoom)! Our proteasome people avatars will be available to collect as stickers.

Shoutout to @shawn.limes for being my photographer and climbing model guide 😂 by @kkrabgrass

Buena Park is just full of whimsy, isn’t it? by @kkrabgrass

At least it’s starting to get warm again by @kkrabgrass

I had a lot of fun this year, but I need 2026 to be a little nicer to me 🥲 by @kkrabgrass