Katie Owens, MD, MPH

Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine and Program in Public Health. 
Katie is originally from Ventura County, California, where she first encountered the healing power of medicine while working in a free clinic. Katie attended Northeastern University and studied Behavioral Neuroscience. In college, she interned at Boston Medical Center in the Grow Clinic and Children’s Health Watch working with children with failure to thrive and assisting with research on how social support programs influence child and family health.  Katie then worked abroad in Ollantaytambo, Peru, in sustainable tourism, helping indigenous artisans build their own 

businesses and connect to global markets. There she saw first-hand how lack of access to care led to poor outcomes for rural and indigenous communities. Katie also worked in Corporate Responsibility at a financial services company, where she learned how to advocate for community and patients from the boardroom.   

During her time in medical school at Northwestern, Katie’s research focused on food security and chronic disease outcomes as well as bias in standardized testing for medical students. She developed strong community partnerships through facilitating cooking classes in a community garden and teaching health education classes for unhoused and refugee populations in downtown Chicago. Katie is thrilled to join the Santa Rosa Family Medicine Team! Katie’s professional interests are reproductive justice, addiction medicine, rural medicine, and access to care for underserved populations. While Katie believes Chicago is the best city in the U.S. (sorry Boston), she is excited to get back to mountains, trees and the ocean. Katie loves to hike, camp, host large potlucks, cook elaborate meals, dabble in woodworking, spend time with her partner Lydia, and pet their bunnies named Susan and Walter.