Kari is the director of the A-CAPP Center and maintains an active research agenda on legal issues pertaining to trademark counterfeiting, U.S. state and federal law, e-commerce and social media liability for trademark counterfeiting, public international and intellectual property legal issues, and the impact of culture in the Middle East on intellectual property and trademark enforcement. She has testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee based on her research. She runs the Center’s education programming, including executive education, the professional certificate in brand protection, the Center’s student internship program and student placement. She also heads outreach to brand protection stakeholders for the center.
Prior to coming to the center, she spent a significant time working, traveling, and living in the Middle East, including Egypt, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Libya, Jordan, and others. She was Deputy Chief of Party at DePaul College of Law’s Iraq office, where she managed rule of law programs; and Deputy Executive Director in the Chicago office. She is a licensed attorney in Illinois and Michigan with a J.D. from DePaul University, an M.A. in Political Science from the American University in Cairo, and a B.A. from the University of Chicago. She is serving her second three-year term on the Academic Specialist Advisory Committee at MSU, where she has been chair, vice-chair, and chair of the promotion subcommittee. She is also an adjunct professor of law at MSU’s College of Law, where she teaches Trademark Counterfeiting, Food Counterfeits, and International Intellectual Property. Additionally, she is a member of INTA and on the anti-counterfeiting sub-committee, AIPLA, and the ABA.