Talents

Karen MacDonald brings the knowledge of an intensive care clinician, the experience of a health scientist, and the insights of an educator to her consulting work.

Karen’s strengths are the ability to understand the strategic picture; to operationalize this into well-designed, rigorous, yet feasible projects; and to coordinate the numerous staffing and tasking details of large and complicated initiatives.  This linking of strategy with action assures that MATRIX45 delivers with the highest quality, greatest flexibility, and utmost creativity.  Throughout her career, Karen has been the “silent force” behind many successful projects.

Experience

Karen’s research experiences range from multi-center clinical trials in intensive care, data management and analysis support in academic/private research, and strategic and operational leadership on numerous worldwide phase 4 and phase 5 studies.

Karen has worked on numerous academic research projects funded by, among others, the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, and the US Public Health Service, as well as foundations such as the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  Her doctoral research was supported by a prestigious National Research Service Award from the NIH.  Over the course of her research career, Karen has designed and analyzed studies to evaluate patient outcomes, health services utilization, and cost effectiveness.

Karen has taught research methods at the University of Virginia and clinical nursing at the University of Texas at Houston.

Prior to co-founding MATRIX45, Karen was the Senior Vice President of Research and Consulting for The Epsilon Group, now a contract research organization.  She left The Epsilon Group in the Fall of 2002 to complete her PhD dissertation at the University of Virginia.

Education

B.S.N., Stephen F. Austin State University (Nacogdoches, TX), 1990

M.S.N., University of Texas Health Sciences Center Houston (Houston, TX), 1993

Ph.D., University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA), 2003

In the Other Life ...

Karen enjoys spending time outdoors — hiking, skiing, snowshoeing, whitewater rafting, and gardening. An avid traveler, she enjoys the diversity of visiting new places and experiencing new cultures.