Karen Lee, MSN, RN, CNRN is a California native who earned her bachelor’s degree in economics at UCLA and a master’s degree as a Coverdell Fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She served as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer for three terms, working with marginalized communities in Panama and the Philippines, and has traveled throughout Europe and Asia in search of greater purpose and connection.

Ultimately, those rich, transformative experiences abroad would inspire her to become a nurse. Those explorative years also spurred a keen interest in different cultures, Buddhist philosophy, and the facets of human nature.

Apart from a love of travel, her hobbies include gardening, graphic and interior design, and collecting seashells, fossils, and other gifts from the natural world. Her tendencies include cleaning, organizing, making lists, and obsessing over big dogs, mid-century modern architecture and furniture, fine stationery, indigenous textiles, acoustic cover songs, and rare orchids. She maintains a mostly private life splitting time between Baltimore and Los Angeles. As an Asian-American, she is proud to join emerging voices in the literary scene.