Karla has a PhD in Law from University College London and an MSc in Equality and Discrimination from the University of Strathclyde. She is a Lecturer in Law at Glasgow Caledonian University and a member of the Equality and Diversity Committee of the Law Society of Scotland.
Karla has particular interest and experience working in the third sector in Scotland, where she has been volunteer, researcher, trainer, facilitator and project coordinator. She has designed, delivered and evaluated prejudice reduction programmes and educational initiatives.
The impact of hate crime and discrimination on mental health has been a major concern identified throughout her career. Sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. can both cause illness and create barriers for the effective access to goods and services. Karla’s research and teaching explores these issues, and she first brought this experience to the MHF in 2017-2018, when she was part of the team evaluating See Me, Scotland’s national programme to end mental health stigma and discrimination.
Karla was the lead for the learning and evaluation of See Me’s Social Movement. This has been a personal and professional highlight in her career as it provided the privilege to work with passionate individuals with lived experience of mental health issues and the opportunity to witness the community connectedness, empowerment and struggles there are in working towards making a difference.
Karla has a range of academic publications in themes of equality and discrimination including mental health stigma. Her research interests include social movements for health, structural discrimination, intersectionality, critical, feminist, and socio-legal approaches, coproduction and action research.