Karen Proctor is a professor on the faculty in the Packaging Science Department. She has been at RIT since 1983. This includes tenure as chairs of both the graduate and undergraduate programs. Previously, Proctor was a packaging professional at both the Xerox and Amway Corporations. Karen spent the 1991 school year in Melbourne, Australia where she helped develop the first packaging degree program in Australia at the Victoria University. In 2007, she was a Visiting Professor in the Packaging Engineering Program at The State University of New Jersey-Rutgers, Biomedical Engineering. In 2006 - 2007, Karen was on sabbatical at the Colgate-Palmolive Corporation as Director of Homecare Packaging and a member of the Colgate Sustainable Packaging Taskforce. She was instrumental in the development of the Global Sustainable Packaging Strategy for Colgate-Palmolive.

Karen is a packaging sustainability advocate for designing "Just RITe Packaging" to meet the supply chain requirements. Her goal in packaging curriculum development is to enhance the educational environment for sustainable packaging innovation in a circular economy.

Proctor has been an active member and officer of many packaging professional associations; Institute of Packaging Professionals (IoPP), International Safe Transit Association (ISTA), Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), International Standards Organization (ISO/TC 122/SC 4/WG2), and the Packaging Association of Canada (PAC).