Karen Lansdown is Head of Department Oral Health at Auckland University of Technology. In her role with Health Sciences Karen oversees the undergraduate and postgraduate programs and is responsible for strategic planning in oral health.

As an oral health therapist with adult scope restorative and postgraduate qualifications in education, Karen has had seventeen years of clinical and eleven years teaching experience. Her teaching philosophy ‘is to make the mundane extraordinary and simplify the complex’. She contributes to the development of educational strategies, consistency of practice, alignment of polices, and procedures ensuring high quality outcomes for students. Her success in transformative teaching has been recognized internationally as a fellow and assessor of the Higher Education Academy UK and through faculty and Vice-Chancellor’s teaching awards.

Karen has been involved in various committees, working groups and a School, Faculty and University level including the Faculty Board, Advisory Groups, Collaborative Health Education Sydney Community of Practice (interprofessional learning) and designing university graduate quality rubrics.

Currently Karen is working towards her PhD titled, The Oral Health Priorities for people with Cerebral Palsy and received over $105,000 in competitive grants. She has presented her research at both national and international levels, is a masters supervisors and peer reviewer for three international journals internationally and across Australasia.

Karen has been actively involved in Health Promotion including the Wingara Mura-Bunga Barrabugu Summer Program, Sydney Homeless Connect and partnership between the Carevan Sunsmiles Program at the University of Sydney designed to raise awareness for 'poverty reduction and sustainable development'. In 2017 this program received an international award for social responsibility on behalf of The Global Child Dental fund.

Prior to commencing her academic role, Karen worked as an Oral Health Therapist (OHT) in South Australia in both the private and public sectors. In the public sector, Karen worked as an OHT in a country town of Adelaide and was involved in the provision of dental services for the South Australian Dental Service (SADS). In her role with the SADS, Karen implemented a program for the provision of dental services to incarcerated youth. In the private sector, Karen worked as an OHT for a general and specialist periodontal practice with a focus on education, prevention, and the treatment of periodontal disease.