Karen McKee is an ecologist with the National Wetlands Research Center, U.S. Geological Survey in Lafayette, LA, USA. She received a Master’s degree from North Carolina State University and a Ph.D. from Louisiana State University in Botany. Her main research area is wetland plant ecology, particularly salt marsh and mangrove communities, which she has studied for the past 30 years. Much of her research has been conducted in coastal Louisiana, but she has had multiple projects investigating coastal wetlands in Florida, Texas, Belize, Panama, Honduras, Australia, New Zealand, China, The Netherlands, and Brazil. Past research has examined adaptations of wetland plants to flooding and salinity, constraints on the growth and distribution of wetland plants, and large-scale disturbance and restoration of wetlands. Her current research focuses on global change impacts to wetlands, including sea-level rise, elevated CO2, and disturbance events such as hurricanes and climate extremes.