Karen A Benefield

Karen is a Systems Integration Administrator in the Business and Information Services (BIS) division at Argonne National Laboratory.  Previous to her current role, she was hired as a computer science co-op intern for the Division of Educational Programs (DEP) division in 2007.  In 2010, Karen moved to a network administrator role for the Global Security Sciences (GSS) division, where she set up and maintained several servers and applications heavily used by the division.  In 2015, Karen moved to the BIS division where she currently administers and maintains numerous critical services and applications that are heavily utilized by the lab-wide community.  Having expertise in Microsoft Teams, Karen recently led the Microsoft Teams softphone project, which has allowed members of the lab community to work efficiently from home while still having access to a lab-issued phone number.

Karen is the current Program Initiator for the Women in Science and Technology (WIST) group at Argonne.  In the past, Karen has served on the WIST Steering Committee, volunteered for IGED (Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day) and SCSW (Science Careers in Search of Women) and has co-chaired SCSW.

Education

• M.S., Computer, Network, and Information Security, DePaul University, Chicago, IL
• B.S., Dual-Major Mathematics and Computer Science, Lewis University, Romeoville, IL

Awards and Honors

• Honors Graduate, Lewis University
• Departmental Senior Award for Computer Science, Lewis University
• Distinguished Scholar’s Diploma, Lewis University
• Pacesetter Award, Argonne National Laboratory
• Upsilon Pi Epsilon Inductee, Lewis University and DePaul University
• Graduated with Distinction, DePaul University
• Young Alumni Achievement Award, Lewis University
• Impact Argonne Award, Argonne National Laboratory
• Spot Award, Argonne National Laboratory