Karen leads the Product Management efforts for the College for America at Southern New Hampshire University. In this role, she is responsible for all aspects of the product lifecycle from requirements, design specifications, testing, pilot programs, rollouts and ongoing improvement for their competency-based platform including: Student Learning and Evaluation portals. She acts as primary project manager for all product development initiatives and is responsible for forming project teams and identifying project milestones.
She works closely with leadership to develop performance metrics, track project progress and provides reports for executive review and analysis. Collaboration with product teams to develop uniform design principles and integration practices is also a key part of her role.
She acts as technical lead for team that is responsible for integrating source systems with the LMS, the identity management system, mobile computing and other emerging systems.
She oversees development of the teaching and learning environment including extending the base functionality and application plug-ins to the learning management system and MyUNH. Works closely with other Academic Technology managers to develop strategies for extending functionality based on user input, technology trends, and increased efficiency/cost effectiveness.
She mentors project staff in developing and integrating new technologies, provides project management for specific development projects, and manages product and project backlog.
Karen spent many years in the University of Massachusetts system and UMassOnline managing their help desk, supporting the learning management system, as well as managing communication and providing support to campus staff and faculty. .
Karen holds her bachelor's degree in Information Technology from the University of Massachusetts Lowell.