Karen Beattie is the Director of Science and Stewardship for the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, a private non-profit land trust that owns 9,006 acres on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. Karen grew up on Long Island, New York. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Sciences from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and spent five years post-undergrad doing seasonal internships for varied ornithological research projects. She obtained her Master’s of Science degree in Wildlife Management from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where her Master’s research focused on the ecology, habitat use patterns, and management needs of Short-eared Owls (Asio flammeus) and Northern Harriers (Circus cyanneus) on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. In 1992, she was hired as the Ecologist for the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, where she now oversees the Department of Science and Stewardship. Her research and management work currently focuses on restoration and maintenance of early successional habitats, fire ecology and wildland fire management planning, property conservation management planning, nesting shorebird management and protection, and rare species ecology.