My name is Karen Lyncoln.  I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated from California State University – San Francisco in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Urban Studies, with an emphasis on City and Regional Planning and Community Organizing.

 I worked for over 50 years as a social scientist with an emphasis on studying people and how they live and how they work - human impact studies related to environmental projects, public engagement, and sustainable land use. I prepared National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and International Finance Corporation/World Bank compliance documents such as environmental and social impact analyses, primarily for projects involving mining, oil and gas development, rights-of-way transfers, water diversions, land withdrawals, and scientific laboratory facilities in the western United States, and internationally in Peru, Ghana, Suriname, and Indonesia. I also designed public/community involvement activities for these projects to educate people about how a project might impact them and their families.

In 1996, I moved to Seeley Lake, after working at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico as a facility planner and later remotely consulting on public involvement and education issues with clean-up of historic nuclear sites. I retired in 2022 as Principal Social Scientist at NewFields Consulting LLC.

I moved to Billings in 2013 to be closer to my son and grandkids. I was a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) advocate and peer coordinator from 2015 to 2022, and I saw the impact of State programs on families. I am a summer volunteer at Tippet Rise Art Center where I get to enjoy the beautiful Fishtail location along with world class music and sculpture. 

I keep busy with Democrat politics; I was a precinct captain in Josephine Crossing from 2018 to 2022, and I was the ‘data’ person on Penny Ronning’s 2022 campaign in Montana’s Second Congressional District (MT-02). I am deeply committed to maintaining our democracy, and that’s what spurred me to run for office against an unopposed candidate. Democracy depends on at least two parties representing various beliefs and opinions. I want to give residents of Senate District 26 a choice!