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Katri Aaltonen is an interdisciplinary scholar with doctoral degrees in both Pharmacy and Sociology. Her research focuses on pharmaceutical, health, and social policy, with particular interests in equity, access to healthcare services and medicines, quality use of medicines, citizens' experiences and perspectives, and the evaluation of policy reforms and their impacts.

Aaltonen joined the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Helsinki as Assistant Professor in 2026. Until August 2027, she holds a joint appointment with INVEST Research Centre and Flagship at the University of Turku. Since joining INVEST in 2019, she has been awarded highly competitive funding from the Research Council of Finland, including a Postdoctoral Researcher grant (2020–2023) and an Academy Research Fellowship (2023–2027). She has also secured substantial research funding as co-principal investigator in two multidisciplinary consortium projects examining service pathways and service integration among children, young people, and families with children.

Prior to her academic career, Aaltonen worked at the Research Unit of the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela), where she combined policy-relevant research with expert responsibilities related to the Finnish medicines reimbursement system. Her work involved close collaboration with policymakers, public authorities, the media, and other stakeholders, as well as extensive use of national administrative register data. She was a member of the network of competent authorities coordinated by the WHO Collaborating Centre for Pharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement Policies and currently serves as the Finnish national informant for the Universal Health Coverage Watch initiative coordinated by the WHO Barcelona Office for Health Systems Financing.

Her research combines perspectives from social pharmacy, pharmacoepidemiology, health services research, and social policy, with the overarching aim of producing evidence to support equitable, effective, and sustainable health and welfare systems.