Based in upstate New York, Karen Michel is an independent radio producer who got her start in media as a guest on Art Linkletter's Kids Say the Darndest Things. She has lived and worked in Alaska, Mexico, Japan, Greenland, India, Canada, Kenya, Nepal, Madagascar, and other geographies real and imagined. Her academic training is in visual arts and cross-cultural education; she's been an exhibiting artist (jewelry, photography, drawing, and holography) and a teacher.

Michel has received many awards and fellowships: Peabody, Robert Wood Johnson, National Endowment for the Arts, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Fulbright/Indo-U.S. Subcommission, among them.