Kunkel is the co-author of Moun­tain State Maneu­ver: AEP and FirstEn­er­gy try to stick ratepay­ers with risky coal plants and tes­ti­fied for the West Vir­ginia Cit­i­zen Action Group in recent AEP and FirstEn­er­gy cas­es. She has pub­lished arti­cles regard­ing the design and imple­men­ta­tion of car­bon cap and div­i­dend poli­cies and cre­at­ed guides for local gov­ern­ments regard­ing ener­gy efficiency.

Kunkel grad­u­at­ed sum­ma cum laude from Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty and received her B.A. in physics in 2006. As a Churchill Schol­ar, Kunkel com­plet­ed her Mas­ter of Advanced Study from the Depart­ment of Applied Math­e­mat­ics and The­o­ret­i­cal Physics from Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty. Cathy was a Ph.D. stu­dent at the Ener­gy and Resource Group at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berkeley.