Currículum Académico
Obtuvo su Doctorado en Finanzas por Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Países Bajos. 
Realizó una estancia postdoctoral en la Cátedra Santander de la Empresa Familiar de la Universidad de Granada. 
Maestría en Economía y Finanzas en la Universidad de Warwick, Reino Unido.
Licenciatura en Economía la cursó en la Universidad de Costa Rica.

Curriculum Empresarial
Es miembro del Sistema Nacional de Investigadores en México Nivel 1 y sus áreas de investigación son gobierno corporativo y empresa familiar. 
Ha participado con CONACYT como miembro del Comité de Evaluación de Becas al Extranjero.
Se ha desempeñado como evaluadora acreditada RCEA y evaluadora de programas de posgrado. 
Ha publicado alrededor de treinta artículos en revistas arbitradas e indexadas, así como en capítulos de libros, y es autora de tres libros.

Dr. Karen Watkins worked as Local Academic Director for the Executive Masters in Financial Management Program (XFM Mexico Program- Rotterdam School of Management) and for the Global Executive Masters in Financial Management Mexico Program (GEMFM program at IESDE School of Management). She is currently the Director of the GEMFM Global Network. Dr. Watkins is affiliated to the Business and Communication Faculty at Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR), Spain, and to ITSM. She teaches bachelor and postgraduate economics and finance. Karen Watkins is a member of the EURO Working Group for Commodities and Financial Modelling, the International Family Enterprise Research Academy, and the International Corporate Governance Society. She has been invited several times to teach Corporate Governance, Mergers & Acquisitions, and Empirical Finance at the XFM and GEMFM programs in Curacao and Mexico, the Masters in Financial Management program at RSM, and BSc programs at UCC Business School. Dr. Watkins obtained the PhD degree in Finance at Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), Rotterdam School of Management/Erasmus School of Economics, during 2007, under the supervision of Prof.dr. Jaap Spronk and Prof.dr. Dick van Dijk. Afterwards, she held a Postdoctoral position at Santander Chair in Family Business, University of Granada, Spain. Her research interests are Corporate Governance, Family Firms, and Entrepreneurship. She has published around thirty articles in journals such as the International Journal of Corporate Governance, The European Journal of Family Business, Frontiers in Finance and Economics, Social Indicators Research, Ensayos Revista de Economia, Contaduria y Administracion, and El Trimestre Economico. Dr. Watkins is the author of two books, one published by ERIM and entitled Macroeconomic Crisis and Firm Performance. She has received several awards, including Best Paper Awards from Ensayos Revista de Economia and The European Journal of Family Business. In 2015 she also received the Adalberto Viesca Sada award for her research on Latin American family firms.