Kat Schwartz joined the ODP as a Communications Specialist in January 2017. Ms. Schwartz provides communications support for several ODP initiatives including analysis of the NIH prevention research portfolio and the Prevention Research Expertise Survey, as well as other efforts to enhance the rigor and reproducibility of NIH-funded prevention research by promoting the use of the best available research methods.

Prior to joining the ODP, Ms. Schwartz was a program analyst with the National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) supporting the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program. Ms. Schwartz began her tenure in the federal government in 2010 as a technical writer/editor writing extramural grants policies at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), later becoming a program analyst and coordinating NHLBI's initiative development process, among other extramural grant activities.

Before coming to the NIH, Ms. Schwartz spent several years as a clinical research coordinator in Chicago, first working with patients with Hepatitis C and other forms of liver disease and then with men with advanced prostate cancer. She also worked as a laboratory technician in biochemistry and biophysics labs. 

Ms. Schwartz earned a Bachelor of Arts in English literature and a Master of Science in journalism with a focus on health care from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.