Kat Cooper is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Nooga Diversity Center. She lives with her wife, Heather Cooper, and is a native Chattanoogan.
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Kat loves Chattanooga and has dedicated her entire professional career to protecting and serving the community in various and unique roles. In 2015, she was nominated as one of Chattanooga’s 20 under 40 most influential people. In 2016, she was selected as a nominee for Best Chattanoogan. More specifically, in her early 20’s while working and attending college, Kat envisioned and recognized Chattanooga’s need for a safe space that catered to LGBTQI youth, individuals, their families, and allies. Cooper co-founded the Nooga Diversity Center (NDC). She is dedicated and passionate about finding and developing ways to meet the various needs that are specific to the LGBTQI community.
Kat has vigilantly worked and publicly advocated for ways to help construct a community that best protects LGBTQI youth and citizens by foreseeing and initiating ways to mitigate, prepare, respond to, and recover from the complex and often tragic circumstances that too often victimize LGBTQI. Kat’s vision is that the Nooga Diversity Center will provide LGBTQI a safe haven, access to needed resources, and, ultimately, help end the statistically higher accounts of LGBTQI homelessness, depression, bullying, domestic and sexual assaults, and suicide.
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