Author(s)

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  Karen Swensen

  Karen Swensen is an award-winning journalist and founder of Life’s About Change, a business aimed at helping others navigate life’s challenges. She currently contributes a monthly “Changing Chapters” segment on the Today Show with Hoda and Jenna. Karen has won more than ten Emmy and six Edward R. Murrow regional awards, along with numerous Gracie, Gabriel, Associated Press and Press Club awards for investigative journalism, writing and feature reporting. Karen spent most of her career at WWL-TV, the CBS affiliate in New Orleans, LA, the only station to provide uninterrupted coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. She, like the majority of her colleagues, lost her home but stayed on the air providing vital information in real time, earning them the most prestigious awards in broadcast journalism: the George Foster Peabody, the Edward R. Murrow, and the DuPont-Columbia Awards. Karen also worked as a morning anchor for NECN in Boston where she wrote and produced the acclaimed documentary “Katrina: A Flood of Tears,” which premiered at Harvard University and was followed by a panel discussion about the governmental response to the tragedy. Karen earned her master’s degree in journalism from Penn State University where she also graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Honors as an undergraduate in Political Science and Spanish. She was Penn State’s nominee and state finalist for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. Karen received an honorary doctorate from the University of Holy Cross in New Orleans in 2017 and received a fellowship from Loyola University of New Orleans’ Institute of Politics. Karen is the proud mother of her daughter, Catherine, and the widow of her beloved husband, John.