Karen is Head of Equality and Fund Manager at Rethink Ireland.

Karen has gained extensive national level experience working across multiple sectors, with communities vulnerable to social exclusion and inequality, Karen’s experience spans across domains of service planning, systemic change, project management, partnership building, training, research, and evaluation. Karen worked in a national planning and evaluation role to bring about systemic change in a national complex community change initiative working directly with investment awardees. This experience included involvement in all stages of the community planning and implementation process underpinned by Theory of Change. Most recently Karen worked in Trinity College Dublin for a number of years addressing social issues in the community as a Project manager, lecturer, researcher, and service evaluator.

Karen has a PhD (Psychology), in which she explored multi generational family and service provider perspectives on the lived experience of risk and protective factors for children of parental substance misuse using an Ecological systems framework. Power imbalances and systemic stigma played a key role highlighting the role of system level factors.

Karen has received training in Scaling up-Learning and Leading for Large Scale change, the Science of Implementation, and Program Evaluation.

Based in the seaside village of Howth, Dublin, Karen loves sea swimming, cliff hiking, and basically any outdoor activity that can include her puppy Missy.