Katherine Murray is urbanist with a background in architecture, urban design and sustainable development. She is also mother to four children and has been happily married for the past 16 years.
After a childhood in Eaglemont and 13 years at Ivanhoe Girl’s, Katherine first studied architecture at RMIT and then sustainable development at Oxford Brookes University. Recently returned to Melbourne after 20+ years living, working and studying abroad, she has spent significant periods in Oxford, London, New York, Tokyo and most recently Singapore.
Her professional architectural and urban design career focused on social infrastructure, particularly in education (designing school and university buildings and masterplans) and international development (participatory interventions in informal urban settings), involving complex projects in numerous cities and contexts.
Four years ago, in Singapore, Katherine founded Young Urbanists, a social enterprise focused on urban education. Young Urbanists collaborates with schools, institutions and local government, developing compelling educational content, enabling young people to make sense of the cities they live in. Katherine will continue this work in Singapore and looks forward to new Melbourne-based opportunities to support better outcomes for cities.
On a personal level, she has been joined in these adventures by her husband James Murray and, over time, by their children, Sam, Alice, Philippa and Angus. Having undertaken their junior years at a British school in Singapore, the children have all begun school in Melbourne this year and are starting their own educational journeys here in Australia.
Katherine’s experience at Ivanhoe Girl’s gave her a great base from which to explore the world. Several teachers were instrumental in this, in particular two visual arts teachers - Christine Durham in the Junior School and John Pigott in the Senior School. Both of these teachers instilled in Katherine a love of learning and a curiosity about people and their relationship with material culture. Katherine looks back on her years at Ivanhoe Girl’s with great fondness.
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