Katharina Schenk (born 23 January 1988) is a German politician from the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Between September 2010 and June 2012, she completed a master's degree in philosophy at the University of Leipzig, before beginning a doctoral program in political philosophy (doctoral project "The Privatization of Happiness") there in April 2013 as a scholarship holder of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

There she was elected to the district council in 2019 and took over the chairmanship of the joint parliamentary group of the SPD and Alliance 90/The Greens until 2022.

[citation needed] In the course of the formation of the second Ramelow cabinet, Schenk was appointed State Secretary in the Thuringian Ministry of the Interior and Local Government [de] by Minister Georg Maier at the beginning of March 2020.

[3][4] On 13 December 2024, Schenk was appointed Thuringia's Minister for Social Affairs, Health, Labour and Family [de] in the Voigt Cabinet.