Bio
Dr. Knowlton is a trauma and critical care surgeon and NIH funded public health researcher whose focus is on improving access to and quality of care for trauma and surgical patients. She obtained her medical degree at McGill University and completed her general surgery residency at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Her desire to understand varied healthcare systems and develop solutions for vulnerable surgical populations led her to obtain an M.P.H. at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and complete a research fellowship at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Most recently, she trained as a Surgical Critical Care fellow at Stanford University Medical Center and joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor of Surgery in early 2018.
Dr. Knowlton's research focuses on improving health equity, addressing barriers in access to care and reducing disparities among vulnerable surgical populations, including underinsured trauma patients. She is also investigating the financial burden that injury imposes upon both patients and hospitals, with the goal of finding economically sustainable strategies for ensuring best outcomes among trauma patients. These include the study of emergency Medicaid programs at the state and national level. Dr. Knowlton’s work has been funded by the American College of Surgeons (the 17th C. James Carrico Faculty Research Fellowship), the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) and the NIH. She has received an R21 by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, and most recently an R01 for her work (2023-2028). Dr. Knowlton is board certified by the American Board of Surgery and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. She is a member of the AAST Diversity and Inclusion and Healthcare Economics Committees, and also serves on the Association for Academic Surgery’s Publications Committee. She was the inaugural Chair of the Associate Member Council of the AAST and currently serves as the Associate Vice Chair of Research for the Stanford Department of Surgery. She was recently recognized by the AAST by receiving the 2023 Canizaro award for best presentation and manuscript at the annual meeting. Dr. Knowlton was also selected as the 2023-24 U.S. recipient of the James IV Surgical Association Traveling Fellowship.
