Karen Weidert is Bixby Center’s Executive Director, applying more than 15 years of experience in international and domestic program management to the Bixby Center’s ongoing efforts to increase access to family planning and safe abortion in sub-Saharan Africa. Karen supports a wide range of activities at the Bixby Center, including study design and implementation, proposal and publication writing, and oversight of grants and contracts. She first joined the Bixby Center in 2009 as a graduate student researcher while completing her MPH in the Health and Social Behavior Program at the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley. While a graduate student, Karen was a Bixby International Health Fellow, focusing on implementation and monitoring of the Misoprostol Pilot Project in Zambia. She was also a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellow with a focus on East Africa and has co-facilitated a health and human rights graduate seminar.
Prior to graduate school, Karen was a fellow with the Amy Biehl Foundation in South Africa and worked with South Africa Partners in Boston before eventually moving to San Francisco to oversee several projects aimed at diversifying the health care workforce in California. She received her undergraduate degree from Syracuse University, majoring in Biology and Psychology. Her current research interests lie in employing a human rights framework to enhance adolescents’ and women’s reproductive health.