Karen Rodriguez’G is Director of the University of Illinois Office of Undergraduate Research. As Director, she leads several campus-wide innovations and initiatives designed to foster, support, and enhance undergraduate research within the larger educational and research mission of the university, including building best practice models in support of undergraduate research; recognition of faculty mentors in tenure and promotion; large-scale assessment of the impact/benefits of research; and pedagogical initiatives fostering access to the research process for underserved student populations. She is currently a Fiddler Faculty Fellow at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, as part of a grant-funded year-long interdisciplinary research community and pedagogical initiative foregrounding the importance of the arts and humanities in global innovations. Earning her PhD in History (Modern Britain and Empire) from the U of I, her research interests include imperial/global networks of knowledge and exchange, space, place and identity, and the science of teaching and experiential learning, particularly in the humanities, social sciences, and fine arts.