In 2008 the American Association for Public Opinion Research honored her with The AAPOR Award, the Association's lifetime achievement award given for an outstanding contribution to the field of public opinion research. In 1999 she received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Association’s New York Chapter.

In 2011 she was the first woman to win the Warren J. Mitofsky Award for excellence in Public Opinion Research from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. (The second woman, Mollyann Brodie, received the award seven years later, in 2018.)

She has also won the Mary Lepper Award for achievement by a political scientist working outside of academia from the Women's Caucus of the American Political Science Association.

She was honored as one of Rutgers University's Distinguished Graduate Alumni, “in recognition of her national and international leadership in pursuing the highest standards of survey research and of the presentation of surveys and election results to the public.”

Kathy has been the President of both the World Association for Public Opinion Research and the American Association for Public Opinion Research. For WAPOR, she led the committee to formulate international exit poll guidelines, which have been endorsed by organizations like AAPOR and ESOMAR.