Utsha Khatri

Utsha G. Khatri is the deputy director of the Center for Health Justice within the Center for Health Care Transformation and Innovation at Penn Medicine. She is also an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and is board-certified in both emergency medicine and addiction medicine.

Utsha’s work aims to redesign health systems to bring marginalized communities to the center of care. As a health services researcher, she focuses on dismantling barriers to equitable care across emergency departments, broader health systems, and carceral facilities, with a specific emphasis on addiction treatment and acute care utilization. Previously on the research faculty at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Utsha has a clinical background spanning academic medical centers, public hospitals, and carceral health settings. Her research bridging care delivery and health policy is supported by the NIH and Emergency Medicine Foundation, and her work has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA Network Open, and Health Affairs. She also serves on the board of directors for the Academic Consortium on Criminal Justice Health.

Utsha earned her bachelor’s degree in political science from Davidson College and her MD from The George Washington University. At the University of Pennsylvania, she completed her emergency medicine residency, the National Clinician Scholars Program fellowship, and a master's in health policy research. Prior to residency, she was a Fulbright Scholar in Sri Lanka.