Karin has more than thirty years of experience as a health researcher, clinician, policymaker, decision-maker and leader with academic institutions (including The University of British Columbia in Vancouver (UBCV) and Maastricht University in the Netherlands), health services and government agencies, and policy work.
She lives in Nelson British Columbia (BC) and is currently an Adjunct Professor or Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in the Faculty of Medicine at The University of British Columbia Point Grey campus (Vancouver). She has gained clinical experience as a Physiotherapist for 18+ years, and as Advisor, WH&S Partnerships in Prevention with Workplace Health & Safety at both Interior Health and Northern Health authorities.
In 2015 Karin joined the Interior Health Authority, a public regional health organization, and looked after research until end 2020. Completed 2 year embedded postdoctoral study, focused on the application of patient engagement in quality improvement initiatives and health research within the Interior Health System, as a part of a deliverable for the BC SUPPORT Unit, Vancouver. In 2019 Karin joined the BC Academic Health Science Research Research Ethics BC Advisory Council, and completed her term + 1 year bonus June 2022. In the role of Patient & Stakeholder Engagement (PE) Lead with Interior Health, as part of the BC SUPPORT Unit Interior Centre, she set up and then worked in close collaboration with the Interior Health Patient Engagement in Research (PEiR) Committee to advance Patient-Oriented Research in the province of British Columbia. Complexity is Karin's friend.
She continues to have particular interest in public health policy and applies general principles to local settings. Strong qualitative research methods researcher, applies ethnographic approaches, and led multiple participatory health-led or patient-oriented research initiatives. Karin initiated a pathway in education in 2021. She successfully completed the Teaching Development Program for New Faculty with UBC CTLT May 2022. This 10-month program involved a range of excellent workshops, and discussions. Karin gained a lot from reading "Teaching in a Digital Age" by Robert Bates, and loved a course focusing on Indigenous Initiatives Design. She is happy to make new UBC Connections. Karin is a student 2022 Course Design Incentive (CDI), and supports the organization of education at the department and curriculum development. A teaching philosophy is in development. She is available to discuss ideas in collaborative health research and education research in BC and beyond. A proud hermeneutic capable of addressing the dialectics of academics (health professionals, clinicians, students) and patients in the context of global polarization.
Karin was born in 1964 and grew up in the Netherlands. In 1988, as a 'wanted' educated Physiotherapist, she temporarily immigrated to the Northern part of the province of British Columbia but fell in love so staying in Canada seemed a good direction.