Katie Savin (they/them) is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at California State University, Sacramento and the inaugural Ford Fellow in Disability Policy Research at the National Academy of Social Insurance. They earned their PhD in Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley, and their MSW at Hunter College, City University of New York. Their research focuses on disability policy, administrative burden, the welfare state, and disability bioethics. They use community-informed qualitative and mixed methods to center the lived experiences of disabled people in policy analysis, with an emphasis on the experiences of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients.  

Katie’s scholarship is shaped by their own experience as a Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) recipient and their background as a medical social worker. Their research on administrative burden, work-related decision-making among SSI recipients, and ABLE accounts was funded through the former Social Security Administration’s Retirement and Disability Research Consortium at the University of Wisconsin—Madison Center for Financial Security, where they were also an Extramural Mentored Fellow (2022—2023).

Katie has published in peer-reviewed journals including Social Service Review, Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, and the AMA Journal of Ethics. They have authored public-facing commentary and essays for outlets such as The New York Times and National Public Radio, and their research has been cited by media outlets including The New York Times and Axios.

Katie lives in Sacramento with their partner, five cats, and countless plants.