Karen Smith Rotabi is Assistant Professor of Social Work at Virginia Commonwealth University. She has an active research with an emphasis on social justice and human rights. Rotabi’s focus includes intercountry adoption and more recently emerging global surrogacy practices. In 2012 Rotabi and Bromfield published “Intercountry adoption declines lead to new practices of global surrogacy in Guatemala: Global human rights concerns in the context of violence and the era of advanced fertility technology” in Affilia. This particular paper links the two phenomena and reviews the history of India’s global surrogacy industry and more recent activity in Guatemala. Rotabi has also actively blogged on the topic at http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/karen-smith-rotabi
Known for intercountry adoption research, she co-edited Intercountry Adoption: Policies, Practices, and Outcomes (2012) with Judith Gibbons. Rotabi’s publication history is found at http://independent.academia.edu/KarenRotabi
Also, Rotabi founded www.StopFemicide.com to build awareness about the extreme violence against women in Guatemala.
Rotabi completed her PhD in Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2005) and both a Master of Social Work (1994) and Master of Public Health (1995) at the University of South Carolina.