Karen is a researcher and designer at the intersection of design, digital fabrication, and biotechnology. She is a doctoral researcher at the Chair of Digital Building Technologies (dbt), Institute of Technology In Architecture (ITA) at the Department of Architecture of ETH Zurich. Her research is part of the ETH initiative called Advanced Engineering with Living Materials (ALIVE).

Karen received a Bachelor’s in Industrial Design from UADE Argentina and later a Master of Science from the Integrative Technologies and Architectural Design Research (ITECH) program at the University of Stuttgart in Germany. Her master’s thesis explored Hybrid Additive Manufacturing of Self-Shaping Metamaterials. During which she was awarded a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Before joining ETH, Karen worked as a Computational Designer in the R&D department at Caracol AM (Italy). She has led TaMaCo (Taller de Materiales y Contrucción), a design research laboratory in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is co-founder of Studio Formosa an experimental design practice.