Karen Hallberg is an Independent Researcher of the Argentine National research Council (CONICET) at the Bariloche Atomic Center (Argentine National Atomic Energy Commission) and is Adjunct Professor at the Instituto Balseiro, Bariloche, Argentina. She obtained the 'Licenciada' (MsC) in Physics and PhD degrees at the Instituto Balseiro in 1987 and 1993, respectively, working on High Tc superconductivity and strongly correlated electrons in Condensed Matter. During two postdoctoral stays, one at the Max Planck Institut FKF, Stuttgart (Germany), and the other at the Max-Planck Institut PKS at Dresden, (Germany), she continued her work in low dimensional systems and strong correlations using mainly numerical techniques. In 1997 she returned to her home institution as a staff member of the Solid State Theory Group. In several opportunities she has visited other institutions as an invited researcher.

Her main research interests concern transport through nanoscopic systems like quantum dots (in different configurations) and Aharonov-Bohm rings; electronic confinement and mirages in quantum corrals; strong correlations in low dimensional systems (Kondo lattice and Hubbard models) and numerical simulations, Density Matrix Renormalization Group and exact diagonalization. She has published around sixty articles in renowned international scientific journals, seven book chapters, several reviews, the edition of a book and several opinion articles and notes devoted to the popularization of science. She has been invited as a lecturer in many opportunities at international conferences and participated in a number of other international scientific meetings. She has organized several conferences and workshops and several editions of the IB-CAB Latinamerican School held every year at the Instituto Balseiro. She has also led research projects funded by the Antorchas Foundation and the National Agency for the promotion of S&T (ANPCyT) and participated in several others.

She has been awarded the 2005 Guggenheim Fellowship

She is currently a Council member of the Pugwash Conferences for Science and World Affairs (Nobel Peace laureate 1995) and was a member of the steering committee of the Argentine Physical Association from 2002 to 2006. She is also a member of the Review Panel of the MaNEP Center (Materials with New Electronic Properties) belonging to the Swiss National Centers of Competence and Research, a member of the Low Temperature Commission of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) and of the Council of the Latin American Center of Physics (CLAF).