Dr. Karen Cadigan is an education innovator focused on improving the lives and outcomes of at-risk young children and their families. Karen currently works on Bloomington-Richfield Public Schools team where she leads the Greater Twin Cities United Way-funded Screen@3 outreach project. This community-based initiative provides for conversation, connection and capacity building in bicultural communities so that Spanish-speaking and Somali young children are supported and ready for kindergarten. Karen has served a variety of roles in the last two decades, always with a focus on targeting at-risk populations, including as a nationally certified school psychologist, a researcher, a policy educator, a professor, a museum exhibit developer, and a policy maker. From 2011-2013 Dr. Cadigan was the first and founding director of the Minnesota State Office of Early Learning, where she led the team that designed and implemented Minnesota's $45 million Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grant. In addition to earning a PhD from the University of Minnesota, she is a graduate of Arrowhead Head Start. Karen and her husband are native Duluthians.