Kara Blackburn

Kara Blackburn is a Senior Lecturer in Managerial Communication at the MIT Sloan School of Management and an affiliate of MIT Sloan's Leadership Center. Blackburn teaches Communication for Leaders and runs the accompanying Communications Lab for full-time MBA students. Blackburn also teaches Advanced Communication for Leaders, an elective for full-time MBA students and Sloan Fellows. Blackburn co-created and teaches a new elective at MIT Sloan, Leading the Way: Perspectives on Advancing Equity and Inclusion. She also teaches in MIT Sloan’s Executive Education programs. Blackburn was awarded the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching at MIT Sloan in 2019. She was also a recipient of the 2020 Teaching with Digital Technology Award.

She has mentored teams in the Global Entrepreneurship Lab (G-Lab), and China and India Lab courses, and has been the faculty lead for study tours in South America and Africa. She has traveled on behalf of the MIT faculty to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Botswana, Namibia, Vietnam, Thailand, and China.

Blackburn holds a PhD from Boston College, an MA from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a BA from Connecticut College.