Kathleen Shumaker, MSW, MPH is the project manager for the Health Equity Toolkit project at the UCLA Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity. She grew up in North Carolina before receiving her Bachelor’s of Social Work at Virginia Commonwealth University. After working in community education and youth outreach in the intimate partner violence (IPV) field, she returned to the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill where she received her Master’s of Public Health in Maternal and Child Health and her Master’s of Social Work in Community Management and Policy Practice.

Kathleen has done a bit of everything all over the country, but has always returned to the worlds of health equity and trauma-informed care. After starting in the world of IPV, she interned at Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Right to Education project, which led to another internship at the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress where she focused on strengthening trauma-informed care delivery in youth-focused organizations. Most recently, she has worked in both the Virginia Department of Health and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment in various roles focused on COVID-19 capacity building, response, and research.