Dr Karen Offen is a historian and independent scholar affiliated with the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University in California.She was a founding member of the Federation and served as the Federation’s first secretary, 1989-1995.Dr Offen’s research has explored the history of Modern Europe, especially France and its global influence; Western thought and politics with reference to family, gender, and the relative status of women; historiography; women's history; the national, regional and global histories of feminism; and comparative history. In 1991 She co-edited (with Ruth Roach Pierson and Jane Rendall) on behalf of the Federation, Writing Women's History: International Perspectives (Macmillan Press, London, and Indiana University Press, 1991).It was the first-ever survey of the development of women’s history in twenty-two countries on five continents.