Karen has collaborated with LiKEN on a number of initiatives relating to land ownership and critical participatory action research activities designed to support homegrown efforts for social change and just transition. Our current collaboration focuses on Stories of Place, an intergenerational project to promote storytelling and creative expression in Martin County, Kentucky. We partner with schools, community groups, and intrepid residents to tell their stories and document life in the county. Karen is passionate about LiKEN's mission of supporting people's efforts to grow where they live in part because she has been mobile her whole life: having grown up in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East, She was attuned early to the global causes and consequences of inequality and injustice. As an Arab American with roots in Egypt, Karen saw the importance of place and people's connections to their homeplace as they search for creative and equitable approaches to the injustices they experience. These lessons inform her current research, teaching, and community work on rural socio-ecological change in Morocco and Central Appalachia. The University of Kentucky is her home institution, but she treasures the the friendships, rootedness, and ethical compass that LiKEN offers for all that she does.