Karen Elizabeth Waldie is a Canadian–New Zealand academic psychologist, and is a full professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in understanding the causes of neurodivergence such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia and dyscalculia.
Waldie was born in Vancouver, and undertook her undergraduate education at the University of Victoria under the honors supervision of the late Emeritus Professor Otfried Spreen.
She then completed an MSc, followed by a PhD titled Hemispheric specialization for reading in subtypes of children with developmental dyslexia, both at the University of Calgary.
[9] As a named investigator on the Growing Up in New Zealand team, Waldie led research analysing paracetamol use by pregnant women, finding a link to childhood depression.
[10][11][12][13] Waldie was also an associate investigator in a 2022 funded Marsden grant titled Revealing Dynamic ADHD Brain Behaviour using Hyperband MRI.