Cathie earned her doctorate in Biology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2001 under the tutelage of Orson K. Miller and completed her postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom in the lab of Lorna Casselton.

She worked for four years as a research molecular biologist with the USDA-ARS, Systematic Botany and Mycology Lab in Beltsville, MD, and for four years as an Assistant and Associate Professor at Louisiana State University.

Currently she is Professor of Mycology in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology and Director of the Arthur and Kriebel Herbaria at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. The Aime Lab researches the systematics and evolution of early diverging basidiomycetes and of tropical fungi. Of particular interest are rust fungi and fungal diseases of tropical tree crops such as coffee and cacao and their socio-economic impacts on rural farmers in developing economies.

Cathie is a Fellow of the Mycological Society of America (MSA), the Explorer’s Club, and the Linnaean Society of London, a former officer of the MSA and past Managing Editor of the journal Mycologia, and a Purdue University Faculty Scholar.