Dr. Karen McLeod is the Managing Director of COMPASS and based at Oregon State University (OSU). COMPASS supports scientists to engage beyond their peers by training them to more effectively communicate with the wider world. COMPASS also works to bring science into public and policy dialogues, creating opportunities for scientists to engage with journalists, policymakers, and other scientists at the most relevant times. Karen has a passion for silo-busting – asking where can bridging the divides among disciplinary, geographic, or topical silos substantially advance our understanding and inform policy? Over the past decade, she has focused on the science of ecosystem-based management, ecosystem services, coupled social-ecological systems, and ocean health. Most recently, she's delving into fire ecology. With Heather Leslie (Brown University), she co-edited Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans (Island Press, 2009), the first synthesis of the science relevant to EBM to inform both policy and practice. Before trading in her fins for Skype earbuds, she spent thousands of hours underwater on coral reefs in the Bahamas, French Polynesia, and the Florida Keys, studying reef fish ecology. She holds a PhD from OSU, an MS from the University of South Florida, and a BA from Franklin and Marshall College (PA). She is a courtesy faculty in OSU’s Department of Integrative Biology. In her free time, you’ll find her running, hiking, and camping in Oregon’s mountains and along its coastlines with her husband and two daughters.