Staff – Karen A. Peterson

Karen A. Peterson, M.Ed. is the Executive Director for the Center, Director of the Diversity in Technology Group, and an Evaluator with the Evaluation & Research Associates. She has managed two U.S. Department of Education grants designed to provide professional development opportunities to Puget Sound area teachers and serves as Principal Investigator on the National Science Foundation grant “The National Girls Collaborative Project”.

For over 20 years, Karen has been active in education as a classroom teacher, university instructor, pre-service and in-service teacher educator, program administrator, and researcher. Serving as Western Washington University’s first "Internet Librarian," she assisted teacher education faculty and students in the integration of technology into K-12 classroom teaching. She currently serves on the board of SMARTgirls, a Seattle-based non-profit organization that develops and administers programs designed to increase girls’ interests in math, science, and technology. A graduate of the University of Washington, Bothell campus, her Master’s thesis focused on gendered attitudes towards computer use in education.