Position Title
News and Media Relations Specialist
- News and Media Relations
Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Graduate and professional schools in Law, Education, Management
Karen is the department’s point person for providing public relations and strategy for the College of Letters and Science (divisions of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, and Social Sciences), the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, and graduate and professional schools in law, education and management. She also serves on the steering committee of the university’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee and as the communications coordinator for UC Davis Advance. In 2016, she spent much of the year in a special assignment promoting the opening of the campus’ new Manetti Shrem Museum of Art.
She enjoys showing the rest of the world how UC Davis plays a role in analyzing, discovering and explaining world events.
Karen joined UC Davis in 2011 after a varied career as a private communications consultant, a media relations manager at the California Medical Association, and a reporter covering the court system in Los Angeles, among other jobs. UC Davis is not her first UC stint, as her first job after her 10-year career as a journalist was at UCLA, where she represented the School of Law (during the O.J. Simpson trial) and the School of Architecture and Urban Planning (during the Northridge earthquake).
She lives in Sacramento with her husband, Steve, and their three dogs — two Akitas, Annabelle and Kiba, and a Scottish Terrier, Sunny. Karen and Steve sing in a choir, where they seemingly spend most of their non-work time.
Guilty pleasure
Elvis XM; any XM
Favorite film
His Girl Friday with Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant: Her character is my alter ego.
Favorite book
Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy: scintillating history.