Since April 2007, Karen has been employed full-time as a lecturer at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Monash University, where she currently teaches high acuity clinical skills and community nursing to third year undergraduate nursing students. Her clinical background is varied but she has post graduate qualifications as an Intensive Care Nurse, with significant expertise in critical care nursing and clinical education. She has worked in both metropolitan and rural hospitals as well spending time as a district nurse in the rural community.

Over the last five years whilst Karen has been employed at Monash University she has been a co-researcher on numerous research projects taking on various aspects of research including; writing ethics and grant applications, interviewing participants, data analysis, coding and thematic analysis, writing final reports and papers, liaising with industry partners, video elicitation, feedback, auditing and many other aspects of research. Karen completed her PhD focusing on the work-readiness of nursing graduates in 2016.