Katya Vogt is the chief of party/program director of USAID CSM-STAND Transform Digital Spaces (Transform). Katya is a senior international development expert with 20 years of experience in program leadership, design, operations, and implementation. She currently leads IREX’s programs addressing technology facilitated gender-based violence as a threat to individuals, democracy, pluralism of voices, national security, and human rights.

Katya also advises IREX’s Communities and Governance and Information and Media practices on effective responses to gendered disinformation, online harms, information integrity and resilience, violence against women in politics and public life, and engaging institutions and organizations in systems change.

Previously, Katya led expansion of IREX’s Learn to Discern approach from a pilot initiative in Ukraine to a portfolio of programs in over 25 countries building resilience to manipulation in traditional and digital media. These programs equip hundreds of thousands of individuals through schools, higher education, and adult learning and online programs and millions of people through awareness and behavior change communications.  

While serving as country director of the IREX office in Ukraine from 2015 to 2018, Katya led the expansion of IREX’s program portfolio to include initiatives which improved Ukrainians’ resilience to disinformation and propaganda, built tolerance and community cohesion in conflict-affected areas of the country, and increased citizen engagement in democratic reform processes.

Overall, in her 10 years of service at IREX, Katya has overseen the design and implementation of programs that focus on women and youth development, conflict mitigation, information integrity and resilience, prevention of trafficking in persons, building rule of law and accountability systems, organizational capacity building, and organizational performance improvement.

Prior to joining IREX, Katya worked at several NGOs in Washington, D.C. including National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA CLUSA) and Education Development Center (EDC) where she led business development efforts and supported implementation of education and teacher training projects in Indonesia, Tanzania, Thailand, and other countries.

Katya holds a Master of Education in international education policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and has native proficiency in Ukrainian and Russian languages.