While Karen’s primary research career has focused on managing complex, large-scale survey projects, she has great passion and strong expertise in survey methodology and continuous project improvement.

Since joining NORC in 1993, Karen has gained extensive experience through her work, which spans the length of NORC’s extensive library of social science surveys. She currently works as the Project Director for the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Doctorate Recipients and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation funded Entrepreneurship in the Population (EPOP) Survey Project. She maintains project oversight responsibilities for NORC’s broad portfolio of higher education related projects including the Hillel Campus Climate Initiative Project, the suite of College Point Advising evaluation collections, and the Association of American Law Schools research initiatives. As a project leader of major enterprise projects, Karen is responsible for all aspects of management, including for all facets of the project, including client management communication, project team leadership, obtaining IRB and Office of Management and Budget clearance, sample design, controlled experiment designs methodological plans, system architecture, data collection oversight, data products and deliverables such as final reports, and external data users' requests.

Karen regularly authors multiple presentations and reports and she frequently produces or co-writes other publications in support of her projects. In the past, Karen co-authored a guideline for the U.S. Department of Education, How to Solicit Rigorous Evaluations of Mathematics and Science Partnerships (MSP) Projects: A User-Friendly Guide for MSP State Coordinators (2005). Earlier in her career with NORC, Karen was the Director of the Data Preparation Center. This experience has given her a thorough understanding of the most effective data collection and quality assurance methodologies, which are seamlessly incorporated into her current project protocols.

Karen received her undergraduate degree and a secondary teaching certificate from the University of Michigan while working at the Institute for Social Research. Since that time, she earned a Master of Project Management.