Her research focuses on the connections between British and American imperialisms, North American historical geography, and women’s travel writing. As a Fulbright lecturer to Nizhni Novgorod State University, Russia, in the Fall of 2002, she will be lecturing on the American West and other themes discussed in Anglo-American and Anglo-European social and cultural geography. Accompanying Karen to Nizhni Novgorod are her husband Daniel Olivetti, and children Nina Olivetti (aged 14) and Nicholas Olivetti (aged 13), shown here in photographs taken for their Russian visas.