Katie O’Toole is a producer, writer, and on-air talent for Penn State Public Broadcasting. The major focus of her work is children’s television. She writes and produces What’s In The News, an Emmy award-winning children’s current events program that is distributed nationally to millions of students in 32 states and in Iceland. The multimedia program uses broadcast, print, and the Web to engage students in the ever-changing world of topics from international politics to cutting edge science.

    O’Toole’s research for What’s In The News has taken her on a dinosaur dig in Montana, to a Native American Indian Reservation in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, through astronaut training at the Huntsville Space center in Alabama, and most recently, to the bottom of the ocean on board the Alvin submersible. She writes and hosts public affairs programs for WPSX-TV, and hosts a variety of special programs from community call-ins to cooking shows. O’Toole is a 1977 graduate of Penn State’s School of Journalism.

    In her spare time, O’Toole coaches basketball and soccer in community leagues.  As a pilot, former skydiver, and current hang glider, she enjoys any sport that gets her voluntarily airborne. 

    When she is not busy at Penn State Public Broadcasting, O’Toole can be found at her home in the village of Lemont, where she lives with her husband, Gary Gray, her six children, two horses, three cats, and a constantly changing assortment of reptiles and amphibians.