Katie holds a dual Bachelor's degree in Electronic Music Production & Design and Business Management. In addition to school, she has over 5 years of work experience involving technical support, QA, IT consulting, A/V services, web development, tutoring, marketing and sales.

She currently works as the Lead Support Engineer at Aerva, a digital signage company founded by MIT alumni. She is responsible for managing both the support and QA departments, providing assistance to customers over the phone, in person and through an email ticketing system, as well as developing manual and automated tests and on the web-based UI, firmware, interactive moible widgets and player hardware. In this position she utilizes a comprehensive variety of technical aptitude, problem solving abilities and communication skills.

Aside from her professional life, Katie enjoys staying active, socializing and spending time outdoors. Her favorite activities include practicing yoga, attending concerts, swimming, snowboarding, hiking, and bike riding. Overall, she is a well-rounded professional with a devotion to the arts and a positive outlook on life.

From the beginning...

Katie Amaral has always had a deep passion for music. At age seven she picked up the guitar and began playing her first live gigs at the age of twelve. Throughout her youth, she was known to be a very skilled instrumentalist and impressive performer. Determined to follow her heart, she decided to attend Berklee College of Music.

At Berklee she greatly expanded upon her artistic repertoire while studying business. Then, she took a strong interest in music technology and got a work-study job at the Berklee Learning Center computer lab as a supervisor and software tutor.

Infatuated with artistic technology, she began making music with computers and infused her guitar styles with electronics. Later, she was accepted into the Music Synthesis major to study sound design engineering. Extensive study of computers also lead her to branch out to do some non-music related work as an IT consultant.

Her hard work and dedication certainly paid off. In 2007, she was generously awarded the Newbury Comics Music Business Scholarship for $10,000. That same year she got a job at a music software company working as a soundware engineer and marketing strategist.

In 2008 Katie graduated from Berklee College of Music with a dual degree in Music Business/Management and Music Synthesis. She continued to work in the music industry until 2009, when she decided to shift her career focus entirely to computer technology. She was hired as a Technical Support Engineer and primary QA Tester at a software company, and then was promoted to manage the department as the Lead Support Engineer.

She continues to produce music and performs periodically, doing live sets with original music, remixes and interactive visuals.