Kat Hawthorne is a highly experienced privacy engineer, currently leading the Confidentiality Engineering department at Square. With a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Information Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she has spent several years in various leadership and technical roles across different organizations.

Prior to her current role at Square, Hawthorne served as an Engineering Manager for Privacy at the same company, where she honed her expertise in privacy engineering. She has also worked as a Software Engineer at Recharge Labs and Virta Health, where she gained extensive experience in software development.

Alongside her work, Hawthorne has volunteered as a Teaching Assistant for Data Structures at UNC and conducted research as a Research Assistant at the Results Space Lab with Dr. Robert Capra.

Hawthorne is also a former intern at IBM's Extreme Blue, where she worked as a Technical Intern. Her work experience also extends to the field of pharmacology, where she worked as a Pharmacology Intern at Merck.

Overall, Hawthorne brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise in privacy engineering and software development to her work at Square.