Dr. Karen Pellegrin has led teams to win more than $30,000,000 in competitive federal grants for UH Hilo since joining the College of Pharmacy in 2008. She served as Principal Investigator and Project Director for the “Pharm2Pharm” program, which was funded by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. The highly successful program has advanced knowledge and practice of pharmacist-led care models while providing educational and professional opportunities for many students. She has more than 25 years of leadership experience in health care quality, strategy, research, and education. Prior to joining the College, she served for more than seven years as an executive for Compass Point Research, a corporation with three subsidiaries providing clinical trials management and ethics review services and technology throughout the US. She began her career at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), where she served as a member of the MUSC Medical Center management team and faculty member.

She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of South Florida, completed a postdoctoral fellowship in health psychology and quality management at the Medical University of South Carolina, and received her MBA from The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina.