Karyn Kaplan
Karyn Kaplan joined Asia Catalyst in 2016. She has worked on health and human rights issues in Asia since 1988, when she moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand and volunteered with a local sex worker rights group, EMPOWER. Since then, she has become a leading advocate on access to medicines, harm reduction and global drug policy issues.
Karyn spent 20 years working alongside grassroots groups in Thailand and is fluent in Thai. She co-founded Thai AIDS Treatment Action Group (TTAG) with HIV-positive activist, Paisan Suwannawong in 2002, to focus on HIV/AIDS treatment access for highly marginalized groups, especially people who inject drugs, migrant sex workers, and people in prison. Karyn, Paisan and TTAG were recipients of the 2009 John M. Lloyd Foundation HIV/AIDS Leadership Award.
Following 12 years as Director of Policy & Development at TTAG, Karyn joined Treatment Action Group as Director of International Hepatitis and HIV Policy & Advocacy. Karyn also worked in policy at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (now OutRight Action International) and Gay Men’s Health Crisis.
In 2014, Karyn received the Health GAP Founders Award. Karyn received her BA from Tufts and did MA coursework at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor.