Karen Gebhardt is a faculty member in the Department of Economics at Colorado State University (CSU). Dr. Gebhardt has a passion for teaching economics. She regularly instructs large introductory courses in macro and microeconomics, small honors sections of these core principles courses, and upper division courses in Public Finance, Microeconomics, and International Trade, as well as a graduate course in teaching methods. She is an early adopter of technology in the classroom and advocates strongly for it because she sees the difference it makes in student engagement and learning. Dr. Gebhardt has taught online consistently since 2005 and coordinates the online program within the Department of Economics at CSU. She also supervises and mentors the department's graduate teaching assistants and adjunct instructors. Dr. Gebhardt was the recipient of the Water Pik Excellence in Education Award in 2006 and was awarded the CSU Best Teacher Award in 2015. Dr. Gebhardt's research interests, publications, and presentations involve the economics of human-wildlife interaction, economics education, and the economics of gender in the United States economy. Before joining CSU, she worked as an Economist at the United States Department of Agriculture/Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service/Wildlife Services/National Wildlife Research Center conducting research on the interactions of humans and wildlife, such as the economic effects of vampire bat-transmitted rabies in Mexico; the potential economic damage from the introduction of invasive species to the Islands of Hawaii; bioeconomic modeling of the impacts of wildlife-transmitted disease; and others. In her free time, Dr. Gebhardt enjoys learning about new teaching methods that integrate technology, as well as rock climbing and camping in the Colorado Rockies and beyond.
