Karen A. Feste

Karen Feste, Professor at the Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, served as Associate Dean (1988- 2000); Budget director (1997-1999); founder and director of the interdisciplinary Conflict Resolution Institute at the University (1998-2022), and director of the International Security master's program (2006-2011; 2021-2024).

She has supervised more than 30 Ph.D. dissertations and more than 50 Masters' theses for Korbel graduates. In addition, she was editor-in-chief of The Monograph Series in World Affairs, a quarterly publication devoted to contemporary issues in international relations, for twelve years. In 2010, she was appointed University of Denver campus mentor for the Army Fellows program for senior officers (affiliated with US Army War College) and continues in that position.

Feste has held visiting professorships in China, Türkiye (Turkey), Germany, Kosovo, Chile, and Trinidad and Tobago, and served as a consultant to the Egyptian Ministry of Planning and the Ministry of Health; and an advisor to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Energy in Thailand. In the 1980s, she was a senior analyst at CACI, a defense contracting firm in Washington D.C., where she prepared reports for the American government on political instability in Egypt, Iran, and the Philippines, and estimating future leadership in China.

She champions rights for women and has brought change in anti-nepotism rules and maternity leave policies at higher education institutions. She was appointed to membership in Forward Global Women, an organization composed of a small group of Arab, Israeli, and American progressive feminist legislators dedicated to promoting Middle East peace processes, serving from August 2013 - October 2023, when the group disband. Her heritage is Norwegian-American.