A renaissance woman par excellence-just about everything strikes her as worthy of getting to know and figuring out. Karen enjoys testing her culinary prowess by replicating the inspired dishes she discovers while dining out. Her artistic outlets run the gamut from painting in watercolors, welding iron and stone sculpture, to her more recent mosaic work-no doubt she'll soon have turned her yard into a Gaudí-inspired garden paradise.

With degrees in economics and anthropology, Karen is always mining for the motivators behind consumer behavior- the more obscure the topics, the more she's intrigued. She has collaborated on a range of academic research projects, from studying Indians in North America and India to her more recent interest in exploring the link between cultural identity and the recent, rapid growth of Quebec's artisanal cheese industry. For the past ten years, Karen has been involved in nearly all aspects of PortiCo's projects, from interviewing, to analysis and report writing, to project management. Fluent in French, she continues to bring her passion for cross-cultural comparison and communications to all of our international and global projects.

Karen lives in Montreal where, when not renovating the turn-of-the-century apartment building she recently acquired, she enjoys practicing Pilates and yoga, exploring the Zen of urban gardening, and biking. But above all else, her biggest priority is her little daughter, whom she is raising bilingual.

• Joined PortiCo in 1998
• Feasibility Analyst, 1995-1999, freelancer
• B.A. in Anthropology and Economics from McGill University
• M.Sc. in Anthropology, Université de Montreal
• Ph.D. work in Anthropology, City University of New York