Kate Schoen is currently a Senior Public Information Representative at the University of California, San Francisco. There she handles media relations and communications for UCSF Children's Hospital and the Department of Pediatrics. Schoen works closely with major regional and national news outlets to inform the public about new research and clinical advances in pediatric care.

Previously, Schoen worked in communications at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation in Menlo Park, Calif., a national health philanthropy dedicated to providing information and analysis on health issues to policymakers, the media and the general public. Her work at Kaiser focused on communications related to HIV/AIDS, women's health policy and public opinion research.

She was a Roy H. Park Fellow who received a master's degree from the Medical Journalism Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in May 2007.

A native Hoosier, Schoen received her bachelor's degree in clinical and experimental psychology from Indiana University in 2003. During her years at IU, she conducted independent research on the behavioral and social impairments related to the onset and persistent use of marital violence.

After graduation Schoen moved to New Haven, Conn., where she worked as a research assistant at the John B. Pierce Laboratory and Yale University School of Medicine. There she conducted psychophysical sensory neuroscience research, specifically focused on the brain mechanisms responsible for perceiving sensations of temperature and pain. She has presented her findings at an international conference of the Society for Neuroscience and co-authored papers in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Behavioural Brain Research.

It was Schoen's interest in communicating about science and medicine through the mass media that brought her to UNC. She says that she hopes her work will contribute to a greater understanding of current scientific research and an increased awareness of important medical issues.