Karen earned a doctoral degree at the University of Massachusetts in Educational Leadership in Schooling, a Master of Science in Occupational Therapy at Boston University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. 

Karen is the Associate Dean of Digital Learning and Innovation, a Clinical Professor of occupational therapy and the Program Director of the online post-professional doctorate in occupational therapy program at Boston University, College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College. She has worked at Boston University for 36 years.

 Karen is a past president and vice president of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA). She has received over 40 awards and honors including being a 2005 recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship to the University of Akureyri in Akuryeri, Iceland; the 2009 recipient of the Award of Merit from the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists (CAOT); received the Award of Merit from AOTA in 2003; and the 2011 AOTA Eleanor Clarke Slagle Lectureship Award. 

 Dr. Jacobs is the founding editor-in-chief of the international, interprofessional journal, WORK: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment and Rehabilitation (IOS Press, The Netherlands).