Vera Institute of Justice

Karen Tan is the director of innovation and program development with Vera’s Impact Pipeline team. She collaborates across Vera to generate and test new ideas that have the potential to transform the criminal legal and immigration systems.

Before joining Vera in 2021, Karen worked at an international humanitarian organization to design policies and services for people impacted by conflict and crisis. Her work in response to the Syrian civil war involved co-designing interventions to address toxic stress and psychological trauma that were scaled across Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon.

In addition to her work at Vera, Karen is a certified professional coach, supporting leaders of community-based organizations and social impact start-ups.

Karen holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Waterloo and an MPA from the London School of Economics.