Dr. Karen Ramirez is the Co-Director of the CU Dialogues Program. She is also a faculty member at CU-Boulder, serving as the Assistant Director of Arts, Humanities, and Social Science Education for the Miramontes Arts and Sciences Program. She has received the Dorothy Martin Faculty Award for excellence in teaching and activism concerning women’s issues as well as a Marinus G. Smith award for her impact on CU undergraduate students. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in English and has published on narrative mappings of place in 19th/20th C. western American literature and how these narrative mappings dialogically intersect with contemporary public memory of western places. More recently, she has drawn on her foundation in dialogism and narrative study to develop, theorize and study dialogue experiences as a form of engaged learning about cross-cultural perspectives. Outside of work, she enjoys singing with the semi-professional choir, Ars Nova Singers, and hiking/camping.