As Chief Partnership and Communications Officer at Deerfield, Karen is responsible for relationships with investors, partner companies, and other interested parties. Prior to this role, Karen was a Trader at Deerfield for over a decade. In this capacity, she was responsible for trading in public securities on behalf of the Funds and developing and communicating market information to the firm. Prior to joining Deerfield in 2002, Karen was a Vice President in the Sales and Trading division of Merrill Lynch. Also at Merrill, she served as a Conflicts Coordinator in the Mergers and Acquisitions department. In this role she was responsible for ensuring that Merrill Lynch was clear of legal and business conflicts of interest before the firm was able to accept an assignment. Karen is on the board of the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures since 2016. She graduated from the Cornell University, School of Hotel Administration and earned her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.