Karen Lee is a Southern California native who earned a bachelor’s degree in economics at UCLA and her master’s degree in nursing as a Coverdell Fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She served as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer working with marginalized communities in Panama (2009 to 2011) and the Philippines (2013, 2016), and has traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia.

This hiatus from conventional American life became a transformative experience which would inspire her to become a nurse. Those explorative years also spurred an 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, feathers, and other remnants from the natural world. Her tendencies include cleaning, organizing, making lists, and obsessing over big dogs, mid-century modern furniture, fine stationery, indigenous textiles, acoustic cover songs, and orchids. She maintains a mostly private life splitting her time between Baltimore and Los Angeles with her husband Tom.