KC is a forest ecologist broadly interested in understanding variation in forest structure and function across space and time. Her research is motivated by the importance of forests for understanding and predicting global cycles of carbon, water, and nutrients. In her work, KC combines remote sensing measurements and field-based observations to understand how organismal mechanisms affect large-scale processes. 

At JPL, KC works on the calibration and validation of spaceborne estimates of biomass from the NISAR satellite mission.

KC grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and was previously a postdoc with the Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO) and the Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments–Tropics (NGEE-Tropics) project at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.