Karen received her Bachelors of Science in Nursing in 1971 at the University of Virginia.

She worked as a labor and delivery nurse at St. Luke's Hospital in Colorado and received a Masters of Science in Maternal-Child Health from the University of Colorado in 1977. Karen moved to Virginia in 1980 and worked as a labor and delivery nurse at Alexandria Hospital for eleven years. She left the hospital in 1991 and enrolled at Georgetown University where she received her Masters of Science in Nurse-Midwifery in 1994. She started with Physicians and Midwives in May of 1994.  This was her first job since graduating from the Midwifery program at Georgetown University.  She has two children Todd, who lives in Florida and Anna who lives in Hampton, Virginia. She also has a grandson Nicholas.