Karen Beattie is the Director of Fistula Care, a global cooperative agreement supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development and managed by EngenderHealth. She manages the project and provides strategic direction to strengthen the capacity of centers to provide quality fistula repair and care; to enhance community and facility understanding of fistula prevention, utilization of emergency obstetric services, and reintegration; to gather, analyze, and use data to improve services, and to strengthen the environment for fistula prevention, repair, and reintegration services.

Prior to serving as Project Director for Fistula Care, Karen served as Technical Director for the ACQUIRE Project, providing strategic and technical direction to the project’s three results teams focused on increasing access to services, improving provider performance, and strengthening the environment for family planning/reproductive health services.

A medical anthropologist and international reproductive health and family planning specialist, Karen has more than 30 years of experience as a program director, manager, innovator, and technical advisor. She has been with EngenderHealth since 1993. Her many achievements with the agency include new research findings on sterilization services, clinical and social studies, and operations research on post-abortion pain management, adolescent reproductive health, obstetric fistula and cervical cancer. She also has developed innovative quality improvement approaches to reproductive health services.

Her contributions to many research and practical manual publications include Contraceptive Sterilization: Global Issues and Trends, Improving the Quality of Emergency Obstetric Services: A Leadership Manual and Toolbook, Infection Prevention Module for Emergency Obstetric Care, and COPE for Reproductive Health Services. Prior to joining EngenderHealth, Karen worked with the Population Council, the International Women’s Health Coalition, and the International Planned Parenthood Federation. She has field experience in more than 10 countries worldwide. Karen has a M.A. in Anthropology from Hunter College of the City University of New York.