Kara has always had two major passions – for travel and for the biology of the natural world. Growing up in the woods of central Alaska her interest in nature became stimulated by visits of ravens and moose to the neighborhood and by sightings of the Aurora borealis overhead.
With a B.S. and M.S. degree in wildlife biology, Kara’s research experiences range from studying whales in the Bering Sea, eiders on the Arctic coast, river otters in central Europe, and raptors in central Alaska, to mouflon sheep in Eastern Europe. She worked for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service as well as the National Park Service, and some private organizations such as the Alaska Bird Observatory.
For the last 18 years her focus has been on the nature travel industry, and she has become an expert ecologist working mostly in the polar regions. Her work has taken her as both expedition leader and lecturer on board passenger ships to the Arctic, Alaska, British Columbia, eastern Russia, Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic, South America and the South Pacific, Antarctica and even the North Pole itself.