Karen Costa holds a master’s degree in higher education, a certificate of advanced graduate studies in educational leadership, and a certificate in neuroscience, learning, and online instruction. She’s been teaching college success strategies to a diverse population of adult learners during increasingly precarious times for almost twenty years and is an adjunct professor teaching active hope strategies and climate justice leadership at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Karen is an in-demand, internationally-recognized public speaker on teaching and learning and a Women’s Media Center designated expert. Karen’s writing has appeared in Inside Higher Education, The Philadelphia Inquirer, On Being, and Faculty Focus. She has recently been an interview subject for NPR, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and The New York Times, respected for her ability to tell the truth about the hard stuff in a relatable, accessible, evidence-based manner.
Karen’s first book, 99 Tips for Creating Simple and Sustainable Educational Videos (Stylus, April 2020), focuses on helping faculty and teachers to make creative use of videos in their classrooms. 99 Tips currently has a 4.5 star rating and 112 reviews on Amazon. Her second book, An Educator’s Guide to ADHD, is forthcoming from Johns Hopkins Press in early 2026. This book will not only support educators with practical strategies, but will be a leading voice in redefining the very meaning of ADHD within the neurodiversity movement.
A voracious lifelong learner, Karen recently received her Biomimicry for Educators certificate from Learn Biomimicry to support her current teaching and advocacy related to climate action education. Karen is herself proudly neurodivergent and disabled, having received later-in-life diagnoses of a chronic neurological illness, ADHD, and autism. In addition, she is celebrating 8.5 years of sobriety. Her challenges do not define her, but rather, connect her to the vast diversity of the human experience, allowing her to reach readers who might feel unseen in many mainstream publications.
Karen lives in Massachusetts with her family.