During her PhD, Katherine also worked on the Science Team for the NASA Extreme Environment Missions Operations (NEEMO) program, a space analog program combining astronaut training with scientific research at the Aquarius Reef Base, the only underwater research habitat in the world. Over the course of her five year participation, she contributed to four NEEMO missions (NEEMO20-23).

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Katherine worked as part of the marine science team on the design, implementation, and data analysis for the NEEMO research project. For this, she trained astronauts (NASA, ESA, JAXA) in coral nursery construction, ecological monitoring, and physiological measurement methods as well as coral tissue sampling and an immediate, underwater, in situ tissue preservation technique developed for the NEEMO missions.

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