Katie Schubert

Kathryn “Katie” Schubert is the president and chief executive officer of the Society for Women’s Health Research (SWHR), a national nonprofit dedicated to advancing women’s health through science, policy, and education. She has led the organization since 2020.

A health-policy advocate by background, Schubert began her career on Capitol Hill, serving in senior staff roles in the US House of Representatives for Representatives Nancy Johnson and Wayne Gilchrest, before advising health-care organizations on policy strategy. She later served as chief advocacy officer at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and as a senior vice president at the government-relations firm CRD Associates. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Mary Washington and a master’s in public policy from The George Washington University, holds the Certified Association Executive (CAE) credential, and has been recognized as an Advocate of the Year by Professional Women in Advocacy and named by Washingtonian magazine in 2024 and 2025 among Washington’s most influential people in health-care policy.

Schubert appeared on Open Door Salon alongside Joanna Sickler, vice president of health policy and external affairs at Roche, for a conversation on why women’s health has been systematically under-studied and under-resourced. She traced the structural gaps back to their roots: women were not required to be included in clinical research until 1993, and sex was not required as a biological variable in NIH-funded studies until 2016.

Across the discussion she made the case that women’s health is far broader than reproductive health, the “bikini medicine” problem, and that despite women making an estimated 80 percent of household healthcare decisions, the field remains fragmented, with no clear owner and too little follow-through from innovation to implementation.