Karen began her career as a public affairs officer with USIA. She joined the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in 1992, where she promoted energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. She returned to Foggy Bottom in 1997 as a foreign affairs officer, managing environmental and commercial diplomacy programs and assisting in the launch of the Middle East Partnership Initiative. Karen earned her Ph.D. in rhetoric from the University of Maryland College Park in 2014. While dissertating on soft power diplomacy, she completed a State Department Franklin Fellowship as grants manager for democracy and governance in Iraq. She joined Booz Allen Hamilton in 2011 as a strategic communications specialist and speechwriter for IC clients. Karen and her husband moved to Lynchburg in 2019; she worked at UVA Engineering as a communications manager prior to joining the Presidential Precinct in December 2022, where she now serves as program executive.
