Karen has just finished her 5th year at Colgate and continues to teach Megageology, Volcanology and Environmental Geochemistry regularly in the department. Karen, working with George Hudson in Colgate's department of English, has developed a very exciting course on the atomic bomb, offered as a Scientific Perspectives core course, and this year included an 'Extended Study' trip to Japan in January, as well as a November trip to Washington, DC. Karen continues as a regular contributor to the Off-campus field program, and has led the development of a new leg in the Seminoe Mountains in south-central Wyoming, where the group does its final major mapping project. Karen just returned from that leg, during which she and the group survived three days of intense thunderstorms, wind, hail and heavy rains. Karen is active in the local community through her science outreach initiatives in local public schools, where she and students present programs illustrating practical examples of science in action to elementary and middle school students. Along with Beth Parks of Colgate's department of Physics, Karen received NSF funding to support a new summer program for enhancement of high school science education for girls. Karen's teaching contributions were recognized nationally this year when she was awarded the Biggs Earth Science award by the Geological Society of America.

      Associated with Karen's active research program in the Galápagos and the Cocos and Carnegie Ridges in the Eastern Pacific, a number of Colgate undergraduates have been able to join her on research cruises and in fieldwork on the islands. Her work includes geochemical study of mantle plumes involving trace element and isotopic analysis and modeling. Karen's ICP-MS lab has been an important addition to the department's analytical suite, and her students have been involved in projects of local interest including water quality, sediment analysis and determination of lead contaminant sources using isotopic ratios.

      Karen and her partner, Dave Baird (who works in IT but is a geologist who regularly teaches a leg of the Geology Off-campus program) live in Poolville, where they provide regular exercise for a brace of fine hounds through long runs in the Brookfield State Forest.