Karen joins the CDT with more than fifteen years’ experience working for the Mi’kmaw. Karen is a proud band member of Millbrook First Nation, where she lives and has raised her family. She is a mother of four, and grandmother of four.

Karen became a mother at 15 and left school, gaining employment at Planned Parenthood, where she traveled around Nova Scotia, and a few other places across Canada, with her daughter on her hip, presenting workshops on various topics, including teen pregnancy, breastfeeding and homophobia. In this role, Karen helped to start a youth helpline for LGBTQIIA+ youth in crisis. 

Karen later returned to school and began her post-secondary education at Dalhousie University, first attending the Transition Year Program, then the Political Science Program and lastly, Employment Services. 

Beyond her education at Dal, Karen has also received a Certificate in Human Resources through the Human Resources Sector Council. 

She began working for the Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nations Chiefs Secretariat (APC) in 2008, first working as the Mi’kmaq Maliseet Atlantic Health Board Coordinator, and then later, for a short time, as an administrative assistant in the Fisheries Department. 

She transitioned from APC to working for Millbrook First Nation in 2010. She was employed as Client Management Officer for the Mi’kmaq Seven Generations Society, which was a short-term training-to-employment program funded by Service Canada. 

After the Seven Generations Society ended in 2012, Karen began working for the Mi’kmaq Employment Training Secretariat (METS) as the Partnership Liaison Officer. In this role, Karen enjoyed meeting with industry representatives from across Nova Scotia to build training and employment partnerships. 

Karen was proud to to be the first Indigenous woman appointed to the inaugural board for the Nova Scotia Apprenticeship Agency. During her two terms, she assisted the province in the national harmonization of the apprenticeship system. 

In 2017, Karen became the Executive Director of the Nova Scotia Native Women’s Association (NSNWA). In this role, she used her personal and professional experience to build the capacity of the association. 

Karen’s leadership led to the NSNWA receiving provincial core funding, multiple long-term programs and a state-of-the-art net-zero Resiliency Center in Millbrook First Nation. 

Karen’s ability to build collaborative relationships and work parallel across governments has led to formal changes within the eligibility for Infrastructure Canada Funding to include Indigenous women’s organizations.