Karen has a long-held interest in Australia's unique native fauna and how they evolved. This led to research on Australian fossil mammals and she completed a PhD in 2008 studying the early evolution of ringtail possums (Pseudocheiridae) with supervisors Professor Michael Archer and Dr Sue Hand. She subsequently spent 12 months working at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC. During this time, she was involved in a range of collection-based projects across the museum including fossil preparation and digitisation of type plant specimens. This experience has influenced her view of natural science collections and their roles in research, education and history.
Karen joined Museum Victoria in February 2010, working in collection registration and collection management roles in Geosciences and Marine Invertebrates. She has also been employed within the Strategic Collection Management section working across all collection areas at the museum as Project Manager for Museum Victoria's most recent collection and library valuation. She is currently a member of the collection management team for the terrestrial vertebrate (mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians) and scientific art collections.