Karen Glaser was born and raised in Pittsburgh. She holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute, and an MFA from Indiana University, Bloomington. She is justly famous for her sustained and expert practice of innovative underwater photography over many years and covering many and various aquatic subjects. Karen is an adjunct instructor of photography at Columbia College, Chicago.

She has been a guest Lecturer at WildPhotos, Royal Geographical Society, London: the Everglades National Park; Big Cypress National Preserve; Fanning Springs State Park; University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; Museum of Science, Miami; Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History, CA; University of Illinois at Chicago; Northlight Gallery, Arizona State University; and at Centro Colombo Americano, Escuela Popular de Artes, Universidad de Medellín as part of FotoFiesta.

Karen Glaser's photography has found a very wide audience with significant commissions and permanent public art installations of work at the Port of Miami, Parque de los Deseos, Medellín, Colombia and for Florida's Art in State Buildings program. She has been a Fellow at the Hermitage Artist's Retreat in Florida and Artist in Residence at both Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve. Most recently Karen was appointed as the 2010 Photographer Laureate for the City of Tampa, Florida. Her images have been featured and reviewed in Harper's, Orion Magazine, Photo District News, Lens Culture, Origo (Hungary), Popular Photography, Swimmers: Seventy International Photographers (Aperture), New Chicago Photographers (Museum of Contemporary Photography) and Alternative Photographic Processes.

Her book Mysterious Manatees was released by the University Press of Florida and the Center for American Places. A travelling exhibition of her manatee work was organized by the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History that then toured to more than twenty venues in the US, including the Georgia Museum of Natural History; Ocean Life Center, Atlantic City; Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History, CA; Museum of History and Natural Sciences, FL; Naval Undersea Museum, Keyport, WA; Natural History Museum, University of Kansas and the Natural Science Center of Greensboro.

Glaser has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council and Arts Midwest/ National Endowment for the Arts, Visual Arts Regional Fellowship. Her work has been featured in many solo exhibitions and

has been represented in numerous group exhibitions across the US.

Glaser's photographs are held in many public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City: Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin; Portland Art Museum, Oregon; National Park Service; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego; LaSalle Bank and Chase Bank collections, Chicago; New York Public Library; University of Louisville; Museum of Science, Miami; Illinois Collection, State of Illinois Center; Port of Miami; the Florida Art in State Buildings Collection and the David C. and the Sarajean Ruttenberg Collection, Chicago, IL. Karen Glaser lives in Chicago.