Kelly R. Knight

Kelly Ray Knight, Ph.D. is a medical anthropologist and Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at University of California – San Francisco (UCSF) and has conducted qualitative research and harm reduction service provision for people who use drugs and experience homelessness since 1996. Her work centers the experiences of poverty and addiction in clinical and community settings; homelessness and health disparities; and, health conditions produced or exacerbated by structural violence.

Dr. Knight is currently Principal Investigator (PI) of two NIDA-funded ethnographic studies: A Longitudinal Qualitative Study of Fentanyl-Stimulant Polysubstance Use Among People Experiencing Homelessness (R01 DA 057672) and Examining the Consequences of Reductions in Opioid Prescribing on Patients, Clinical Care, and Community Health (RO1 DA 043631), and has served as PI, or Co-I, on multiple federally-funded qualitative/ethnographic studies examining social and policy implications of mental health, substance use and homelessness. Dr. Knight has published 65 peer-reviewed journal articles and an awarding-winning, book-length ethnographic study of pregnant people who use drugs and live in single-room occupancy hotels, addicted.pregnant.poor (Duke University Press, 2015). She is a member of the Structural Competency Working Group in the Bay Area and a national leader on the development structural competency curricula and training. She serves as a Director of Qualitative Research for the UCSF Benioff Housing and Homelessness Initiative, Co-Director for UCSF Population Health and Health Equity, as a Core Curricular Liaison for the UCSF Anti-Oppressive Curricular Initiative, and as steering committee member for the REPAIR Project, a three-year initiative addressing anti-Black racism in science and medicine housed in the UCSF Department of Humanities and Social Sciences.