Kate LeMasters
SOCIAL EPIDEMIOLOGIST
Welcome.
I am an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine. My primary appointment is in General Internal Medicine and I have a secondary appointment in Epidemiology. I am a social epidemiologist and a community engaged researcher, focusing on how the system of mass incarceration creates and exacerbates health inequities.
In 2023, I graduated with my PhD in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I was affiliated with the Carolina Population Center and the Bellwether Collaborative for Health Justice. I am also a scholar at The Lifespan/Brown Criminal Justice Research Training Program.
Select Publications
McCauley, E., Cullins, Z., LeMasters, K. A Legal Quagmire: the need for a public health approach to the competency crisis. Health Justice 13, 65 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40352-025-00379-9
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LeMasters, K., Levintow, S., Lao, J., McCauley, E., Waleed, C., Cullins, Z., Behne, M.F., Brinkley-Rubinstein, L. The Use of Solitary Confinement and In-Custody Mortality in North Carolina State Prisons, 2021-2023. SSM-Population Health (2025): 101865. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2025.101865
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LeMasters, K., Brinkley-Rubinstein, L., Maner, M., Peterson, M., Nowotny, K., Bailey, Z. Carceral Epidemiology: COVID-19 Highlights Mass Incarceration as a Key Mechanism of Structural Racism. The Lancet Public Health. March 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(22)00005-6
Unbound Authors provides writing labs to incarcerated writers in Colorado state prisons.
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