About

Susannah Keate is a taxonomist turned folklorist working in Cache Valley, Utah. She holds a bachelor's degree in linguistics and a master's degree in library and information science, and has spent almost a decade working as a taxonomist and ontologist at companies including Overstock, Etsy, and Lenovo. Her goal in the tech world is to create human-centered experiences in digital spaces. She is now pursuing a master's in folklore, focused on vernacular spirituality and folk belief, and the relationships that herbalists, gardeners, and farmers in northern Utah hold with the land and the more-than-human world.

Since 2021, she has been a member of Harvard Divinity School's Program for the Evolution of Spirituality working groups, and spoke about her work at the Program's annual conference in both 2025 and 2026.

Susannah was the Folklore Fellow at Utah State University from 2025-2026 and the Mehdi Heravi Endowed Fellow from 2026-2027. Her work has been supported by the College of History, Culture, and Ideas with a Graduate Student Conference Travel Scholarship for her presentation at Harvard Divinity School in fall 2026.

Susannah was awarded the Elli Köngäs-Maranda Student Prize in 2026 for her paper “Get in Loser, We’re Going to the Cottage: Empty Netters, Defying Hegemonic Masculinity, and Unlikely Healing Experiences in the Heated Rivalry Fandom”.

Susannah maintains a deep relationship with the land, including a pioneer-era apple tree on the Spanish Fork River Trail and the mossy lake outside of her grandparents' house in Michigan. She is honored to care for her beloved dog, Junebug.