Karen Stine decided that she wanted to be a physicist in grade school, and then held that thought through college, where she received a B.S. degree with a double major in Physics and Biology from the College of William and Mary in Virginia. An interest in biological processes led her to pursue an M.S. in Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, where she was distracted from her thesis work on barrier island ecology by her discovery of the existence of toxicology. She followed that interest through to a Ph.D. in Toxicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with dissertation work in the areas of developmental neurotoxicology and energy metabolism. Thinking that she might like to teach, she then took a position as an assistant professor at Clemson University teaching safety, risk, and toxicology. From there she moved on to Radford University, and then to Ashland University (Ohio) where she spent 19 years teaching courses in biology and toxicology and pursuing research interests in cellular stress and energy metabolism. At Ashland she was also recruited to the dark side of academia (i.e., administration), serving as Director of the Toxicology program and then Chair of the Department of Biology/Toxicology. She also served for several years as Dean of the School of Sciences at Auburn University at Montgomery, before returning to the faculty there as Honors Professor of Biology and Environmental Science. She is now retired, holding the position of Professor Emerita.