Karen Morales

Associate Director for Engagement, The PATIENTS Program, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy

Karen Morales is an associate director of engagement with The PATIENTS Program at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.  She has been with the University of Maryland system for more than 30 years.  She has extensive experience engaging medical providers, students, researchers, patients, and caregivers all with the goal of meeting the needs of the patient community.  Throughout her career, Ms. Morales has served in administrative, grants management and supervisory roles. 

Ms. Morales is a committed community engagement strategist who oversees and serves as an expert in authentic patient and stakeholder engagement in research.  She collaborates with patients and stakeholders to meet them where they are to ensure the patients voice is heard and incorporated into research from the beginning stages.  She provides advice to researchers on the development, implementation, and evaluation of strategies to include patients as stakeholders and valued partners, not just as study participants.  

Ms. Morales is committed to helping to improve lives wherever possible.  She serves in an unpaid position with Ishshah’s Place, as a community engagement officer on the board of directors.  Ishshah’s Place is a grassroots 501(c)(3) organization whose focus is on providing a refuge for survivors of domestic abuse and intimate partner violence that serves to promote holistic healing and lifestyle transformations.  She also serves in a volunteer role, as director of fundraising for the Alternative Approaches to Mental Health Crisis Center, another nonprofit profit organization that seeks to serve individuals experiencing mental health crisis in Baltimore City.