Karen McFarlane Holman

Karen McFarlane Holman, Ph.D. fuses her 20-year career as a chemistry professor with her 25-year speaking and performance career on hundreds of stages. Her TEDx talk on a novel type of anti-cancer treatment has an engagement of over 44K views, and recently gave a second TEDx talk. As a guitarist and singer in punk rock bands, she has performed at hundreds of concerts and festivals and remains active in two bands: the raucous trio City of Pieces and the all-girl punk band Hot Sheets. She has a firmhold on TikTok with several viral (1M+) videos and hosts three YouTube channels, two that are science-based and one for her lifestyle podcast 10 Bestest.

Karen has been called “female Bill Nye the Science Guy”. She was awarded Professor of the Year for Oregon by the Carnegie Foundation due to her intelligence and enormous passion for engaging others in science. She is the Founder and Director of Science Rockstar Kids, an online science program that engages children in hands-on scientific explorations. She is much-loved by adults as well, who rave about how much they learn from her dynamic and engaging videos.

While she is a talented entertainer, Professor McFarlane Holman is a legit scientist. In her role as a successful researcher, Karen has authored 24 scientific articles and book chapters in her specialty of metals and their applications in renewable fuels, photosynthesis, and novel chemotherapeutics. She has been a part of several international research teams, has given scientific presentations on four different continents, and performed some of her Ph.D. work as part of a NATO collaboration in Germany. Her love of cultural connections brought her to Saudi Arabia twice, where she taught chemistry to teenage Saudi girls at a science camp. When she lived in Bogotá, Colombia for a year, Karen became fluent in Spanish.

Karen's love of connecting and speaking with audiences has roots in radio. She has over 30 years experience as a radio producer and (more recently) podcaster, and she is the Founder of KMUZ-FM, the first community radio station in the capital city of Oregon. While she loves the old-school vibe of terrestrial radio, she is enjoying her international connections through Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok.

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