Katarina Šavikin received her primary, secondary and university education in Belgrade. She entered the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Belgrade in 1985. and graduated in April 1990, with an average grade of 9.21. During her studies at the Faculty of Pharmacy, she was a scholarship recipient of the Foundation for Young Talents.

After graduating, she enrolled in postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Biology, Department of Plant Physiology. She defended her master's thesis entitled "Examination of diosgenin content in the tissue culture of Dioscorea balcanica Košanin" in June 1993 and earned the title of Master of Biological Sciences. For her master's thesis, she received an award from the Belgrade Chamber of Commerce.

She defended her doctoral dissertation entitled "Endemic-relict species Dioscorea balcanica Košanin (Dioscoreaceae) - a potential producer of diosgenin in in vitro culture" in 1996 at the Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade.

She obtained the title of scientific associate on April 30, 1997, the title of senior scientific associate on October 31, 2000, and was promoted to the title of scientific advisor on March 4, 2004. In 2018, she was elected to the position of full professor for the narrow field of Pharmaceutical Science.

Since March 1995, she has been employed at the Institute for Medicinal Plants Research "Dr Josif Pančić" and currently holds the position of assistant director for the Science Department. She is a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute, as well as the Parent Scientific Committee for Biotechnology and Agriculture of the Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia.

She participated in 12 projects of the relevant Ministry, in five of which she was the manager, in a number of international and bilateral projects (SEERA.NET Plus; HORIZON 2020-MSCA-RISE; Cross-border Program Serbia – Montenegro IPA II; OPCW; UNESCO; bilateral projects with France, China, Austria, Slovenia, Montenegro, Croatia), projects of the Fund for Innovations (Science and Economy Cooperation Program; Innovation Vouchers) as well as in a series of development researches of the Institute that resulted in new products on the market.

She has published over 300 scientific papers. The citation index (h-index) is 39 with 5156 citations according to the Scopus index database. She is on the list of 10% executive researchers of the Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation. From 2020. she is on the Stanford list of 2% of the most influential scientists in the world.

As a mentor or committee member, she participated in the preparation of 2 master's theses and 15 doctoral dissertations. She is a reviewer or guest editor for a number of international journals and a member of the Society for Medicinal Plants Research (GA), Germany. She was a membership in 4 scientific committees of international conferences.

The narrower areas of scientific interests are pharmacognosy, phytotherapy, ethnomedicine, natural products, "green extractions", development research in formulation of new herbal products.

She speaks and writes English language.

https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0002-2086-9593