About

My name is Abe Katz. This website is a portfolio of my writing, woodwork, and music.

Professionally

I’m interested in how big social problems are affected by public sector forces (government) and private sector forces (business and nonprofits) differently. I’ve variably studied and worked in:

  • Middle East politics and Arabic language

  • U.S. k-12 education and rural poverty

  • American Indian—specifically Lakota—history and policy

  • Consumer finance by CDFIs and credit unions

  • Federal (Exec Branch), State, and Local (city & county) public policy

  • B Corporations and “impact investing”

  • Social media platforms, “trust & safety,” AI, and tech generally.

I grew up almost entirely in Massachusetts.

I graduated Middlebury College in Vermont with a BA in International Studies. The International Studies degree has three pieces: an academic discipline, a geographic region, and a language. For me, that was Political Science, Middle East, and Arabic language. I lived for about a year in Alexandria, Egypt and Muscat, Oman. My undergraduate honors thesis was a comparative study of governance: why have the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states—all monarchies—developed consultative structures (quasi-legislatures) with various shapes and degrees of power?

I lived in Pine Ridge Reservation, in the state of South Dakota, where I was a middle school math teacher in the town of Kyle, initially placed through Teach for America. I then worked at the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies (CAIRNS). I developed a bunch of educational products and facilitated training sessions, workshops, and classes for organizations and individuals working in Indian Country.

I moved to Durham, NC for graduate school. I earned a Masters of Public Policy (MPP) at Duke and a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) at UNC Chapel Hill. My masters project was a quantitative evaluation (done mostly in R) of the extent to which a local Credit Union/CDFI’s consumer lending portfolio in fact advanced its stated mission to make affordable credit available to marginalized communities (happily, it does a good job!).

I moved to San Francisco, CA to work on the Feed Ranking and Misinformation teams at Meta (then called Facebook). My final role at that company was on the Governance team, focused on the Oversight Board. I had a brief Residency at a Jewish community urban farm in Berkeley, CA.

I moved back to Durham, NC and led Discord’s Product Policy team. When people ask “What does that mean?” I answer: How do we design social tech to be wonderful for everybody, the pierced queer teens in cyberspace (Third Eye Blind, 1997) et al., and also bad for nazis, spammers, and covid deniers? That’s product policy.

I teach policy and tech topics in various capacities at Duke, Middlebury, and Stanford.

My LinkedIn profile is here.

My Bluesky profile is here.

Woodwork-wise

My favorite species are walnut, cherry, and maple. I began woodworking with some focus in 2018. I have a 12x10 ft shop in my backyard where I build furniture and various small useful items. I like that wood, as a medium, feels very warm, storied, and charactered - while it can get pretty darn precise, it will always have some personality. I understand the ways in which it’s forgiving, and every one of my projects ends up being about ways of fixing or working with mistakes I’ve made. I also like woodwork as an exercise in focusing on the process as much as the product, although that focus often eludes me.

I am always interested in hearing about what you might like built, and how I might help. Please don’t hesitate to contact me!

Musically

I write, arrange, perform, and record stuff. I play the trumpet, piano, guitar, and I sing. As of Fall 2025 I have these projects:

  • Singers of New and Ancient Music (SONAM) - a North Carolina choir of roughly two dozen musicians.

  • The Dovetails - three friends and me doing acoustic, harmony-forwards folksy original music and a few covers.

  • Abe Katz - my independent work, which is folksy but with some electric (and electronic) presence.

Music has been the single biggest influence and ballast in my life, from my earliest memories. I can’t get enough of it. I hope you’ll listen to the stuff I make.