Karen graduated from the University of Georgia in 2015 and 2018 with her B.A. and M.A. in Romance Languages. She started her teaching career as a Teaching Assistant at the University of Georgia and knew this was the path she wanted to take. Karen has been teaching Spanish since 2017 at college and high school levels. She joined the faculty at OCHS in 2023 and teaches various levels of Spanish. She enjoys incorporating her personal experiences as a Guatemalan-American in class and loves sharing her enthusiasm for her Hispanic culture. Karen has been married to Daniel Ruiz, a Spanish teacher at "the school down the road" since 2018.