Cathie Pake teaches majors and non-majors general biology and environmental science courses. She has been teaching at Rock Creek since1996.

She received her Bachelor's degree from Oregon Health Sciences University in 1980 and completed a Master's degree in 1986 from the University of Minnesota. Her Master's thesis involved a year in Thailand studying the Medicinal Ethnobotany of Hmong Refugees.She received her Ph.D. from the University of Arizona (1993) where she studied the Ecology of the Sonoran Desert Annual Plants.

Her hobbies include hiking, cross country- skiing, and botanizing.