Kate Towsey
Author of Research That Scales
Kate Towsey is an independent strategist, coach, and advisor. For more than a decade, she has been at the forefront of ResearchOps. The inventor of the widely used acronym PWDR (pau·duh) for “people who do research,” Kate also wrote some of the earliest blog posts about setting up research operations, founded the ResearchOps Community, and launched the #WhatisResearchOps movement, putting ResearchOps on the map.
In 2019, she stepped back from the ResearchOps Community and started the Cha Cha Club, a members’ club for full-time ResearchOps professionals, which she runs to this day. Over twenty years, Kate has delivered operations in ecommerce, education, government, retail, and tech. She built and managed the Atlassian ResearchOps team, widely recognized as the benchmark for scaling research services and systems to hundreds of people. Learn more at katetowsey.com, or find her on LinkedIn, Medium, or Substack
Rosenverse talks by Kate:
" Researchers are shy about sharing work because they worry about being judged — peer and management support help. "
ResearchOps AMA with Kate Towsey & Jake Burghardt
October 16, 2025
" It is impossible for one research ops person to do all the things expected in job descriptions. "
Ask Me Anything (AMA) with Kate Towsey
April 2, 2025
" The term ‘study’ rings of academia and reinforces power dynamics; I prefer continuous engagement instead. "
Theme Panel
March 11, 2025
" The issue is not research ops being more organized researchers — the problems and scale are very different. "
The State of ResearchOps: More Than Just Theory
June 20, 2019
