Katie Amato is a biological anthropologist studying the gut microbiota in the broad context of host ecology and evolution. Trained as field primatologist, her perspectives on physiology, plasticity, and fitness in wild primates inform her research on human-gut microbe interactions. She is particularly interested in understanding how changes in the gut microbiota impact patterns of nutrition and health in human populations and pinpointing the social and biological mechanisms that lead to these changes. She is an Azrieli Global Scholar for the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research's 'Humans and the Microbiome' program and an associate editor for the journal Microbiome.

Amato obtained her B.A. in Biology from Dartmouth College in 2007. She was a Fulbright Fellow and National Geographic Young Explorer in Mexico from 2007-2008, and she earned her Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2013.