While self-taught in photography, Karen Zusman has a Master of Fine Art in poetry from Columbia University’s School of the Arts Graduate Writing Program. Her photographic work is a mix of documentary, street, and portraiture and is recognized for its intimacy, warmth and a lyrical sensibility that comes from seeing the world through a poet’s eyes. She is a Leica Women’s Foto Project Awardee; a Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting Grantee for her stories documenting human trafficking in Southeast Asia; and was a guest speaker at UNESCO’s international training program in Bangkok for young human rights leaders coming from conflict regions around the world. In 2014, Ms Zusman co-founded a free mobile education project along with Burmese human rights advocate, Tim Aye Hardy, and others. Under Mr. Hardy’s direction, the program provides non-formal education (NFE) to child laborers in Myanmar by bringing the classroom and teachers to their place of work. Before the coup in 2021, myME: Mobile Education Project served over 20,000 working and out-of-school youth inside Myanmar. The Super Power of Me platform brings together Karen’s loves and skills as a photographer, poet, and non-formal education advocate for youth everywhere.

Her work has been broadcast on PBS, NPR, ABC News and NY1 and published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, L’Oeil de la Photographie, Boston Magazine and others. Her photography has been exhibited at Fotografiska NY; The Museum for the City of NY; The International Photography Center, NY; The Leica Galleries Los Angeles and Boston; Casilhaus, NC; and at Xposure 2023, UAE.

In 2022, Leica Camera used her image as the face of their The World Deserves Witnesses Campaign. The image was installed on a 150 x 100 ft wallscape in Los Angeles, and on bus shelters throughout NYC, Boston and Washington, D.C. In 2023 she was the keynote speaker at Opening Ceremony for the Xposure International Photography Festival in United Arab Emirates, along with luminary photographers James Balag and Dan Winters.