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.