Karen Clark Stanton (born 1955)[1] is a diplomat and former United States Ambassador to East Timor.

Stanton then became an assignments officer in the Bureau of Human Resources, and served as a management counselor at the embassy in Singapore from 2004 to 2008.

In July 2013, when Stanton was executive director of the State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, she was nominated to be ambassador to Timor-Leste, but due to a backlog of appointments was not confirmed by the Senate for 401 days.

[6] While the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations had earlier approved her nomination, Senate filibusters delayed confirmations of many nominees, including Stanton,[7] and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) threatened to delay all executive nominations until more witnesses testified about the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

[8] Once she arrived in Timor-Leste, Stanton presented her credentials to President Taur Matan Ruak on January 16, 2015.