Xconomy is sad to report that Katie Vale, a mainstay of the New England education and technology community, passed away unexpectedly on Sunday, Nov. 27. She was 51.
Vale was a close friend of the Xconomy family and participated in many Boston-area education and tech efforts and mentoring programs, among other things. Most recently, she served as vice president for information and library services at Bates College in Lewiston, ME, where she worked since 2015. In that role, she advanced projects in areas as diverse as information security, IT services, high-performance computing, and open access and scholarly communication.
Before her time at Bates, Vale was director of digital learning at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health, and also served as director of academic technology at Harvard. Her early career spanned Brown University, MIT, and Harvard, and she made important contributions to hypertext (think any time you click on a link), MIT OpenCourseWare (think MOOCs), HarvardX, and other projects.
A unifying theme to her career: developing and advocating for the kinds of educational systems and technologies that can produce new innovators and thinkers, and that help anchor clusters like Boston.
Vale is survived by her spouse, Marshall Vale, and their two children. You can read more about Katie’s life and get information about her memorial services at katievale.com. Her family also welcomes you to share your stories of Katie by sending e-mail to [email protected].
