Katy was appointed Professor of Criminology at the University of South Wales, in July 2013. Previously, Katy worked as a data analyst in the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge after completing her PhD there in 2000. In 2002, Katy moved to Wales to take up a Research Fellowship at the University of Glamorgan (now the University of South Wales) and in 2008 she became a Reader in Criminology and a permanent member of the Criminology team. During the course of her academic career, Katy’s research has focused on substance use. She has conducted studies that have investigated a wide range of substance-related issues including: drug use among arrestees, the causal connection between drug use and crime among prisoners, the effectiveness of drug treatment, the use of Take-Home Naloxone among people who use opiates, the implementation of the Welsh Substance Misuse Strategy, the characteristics of opiate overdose events, substance use and misuse among university students, and the misuse and diversion of over-the-counter and prescription medication.

More recently, Katy has been involved in research investigating the impact of minimum pricing for alcohol in Wales.  She has also worked closely with substance misuse services across Wales on a collaborative project investigating what lessons can be learned from lockdown moving forward into a post-COVID world. The philosophy of harm reduction underpins Katy’s research and she is a member of the UK Government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), Welsh Government's National Implementation Board for Drug Poisoning Prevention and Executive Board member of the Dyfodol, IRIS, Gwent and Dyfed Drug and Alcohol Service consortium of substance misuse treatment providers. In September 2022, she was appointed as Chair of the Kaleidoscope Sub-group for Research, Development and Innovation and helped them to develop a Foundation for Research, Development and Innovation. She is no longer Chair but remains involved in helping support the continued development of the Foundation. 

She is currently working on a Welsh Government funded national evaluation of Buvidal (a novel depot form of opioid substitution therapy) and on an evaluation of the organisational impact of Substance Use Officers for Welsh Probation Service.  She is also co-leading with Dr Ben Gray from Public Health Wales, a qualitative study (funded by Health Care Research Wales) investigating changes in substance use among people during their time in prison and at the critical moment immediately following their release. She is also collaborating with Dr James Morgan (London Metropolitan University), Dr Aled Davies (a GP with special interest in Substance Misuse) and Dr Marian Buhociu (USW) on a qualitative study funded by the KEIF programme that is investigating heroin using lifestyles with a focus on help-seeking for health problems. 

In addition to her research activities, Katy is working with colleagues across USW to develop and support initiatives that seek to reduce substance related harm among university students. This includes the roll-out of the Staying Safe Programme (an online course for students).  

Katy is module leader for the MSc module 'Drug Interventions' and she contributes to modules at BSc level as a guest speaker. She also supervises BSc, MSc and PhD research students with their projects and dissertations. Katy has a particular interest in research methods and for many years enjoyed teaching second year students how to use SPSS and NVivo to analyse and interpret data.