Karen is a lifelong environmentalist, naturalist, educator, poet, author and overpopulation activist. She received her doctorate from the University of St. Thomas in 2002, following two other degrees in education. She retired as a long-time naturalist and nature center director to start the LLC, Move Upstream Environmental Consulting (MUSEC).

As a member of the advisory board of the non-profit “Earth Overshoot”, she has become increasingly alarmed by the lack of discourse surrounding the overpopulation crisis. In 2015, her book Move Upstream, A Call for Overpopulation, was published by Freethought House Press. Her newest book moves the discussion further upstream, Change Our Stories Change our World.

Karen is a new board member of SEPS, (Scientists and Environmentalists for Population Stabilization). She was on the advisory board of World Population Balance (1992-2021).

She writes children’s books, the most well known of which is the Nature’s Yucky series, co-written by Lee Ann Landstrom by Mountain Press. Her books for adults are Grieving Outside the Box, Stories of Hope and Resilience and The Wolf Within, Poems to Awaken and Inspire in Times Like these and Organic Dreams and Pickled Nightmares, a Pocketful of Political Poems for the Resistance. She also conducts lectures on topics ranging from, “How to Write Children’s Books,” to “Vegetarian Wild Edible Cooking.”

Karen has had op-ed pieces published in papers from all over the country. She lectures about her books to groups around the Twin Cities and has accepted invitations to speak in China and England.