Karen Lue
she/her/hers
Senior Manager of Operations, Neighborhood Allies
While Karen Lue has had a varied and successful career trajectory, it isn’t what she once expected it to be.
"I thought I was going to be working in arts admin,” she said. “What I studied in college is art history and economics.”
Though arts admin is a role she hasn’t tried (yet), Karen’s interest her creative pursuits has flourished alongside the skills she developed for project management, and she’s just getting started.
Following her undergraduate degree at the University of Pittsburgh, Karen went to Taiwan as a Fulbright scholar before moving to New York City to work at a tech startup.
“That’s where the project management skillset started,” Karen said.
While in New York, Karen turned her attention to art, particularly photography.
“I’d always continued to make art, and I feel like when I moved to NY, I started concentrating on photography more,” she said.” I was able to take my first black and white dark room class. I took a color dark room class. I really wanted to try to pursue that in some way.”
While she was weighing her options and considering pursing a MFA in photography, she spent a year in Taiwan again, this time taking an intensive course in Mandarin. Instead of going back to school, however, she moved back to Pittsburgh.
Since 2022, Karen has worked for Neighborhood Allies, a community and economic development nonprofit. She started as the senior program manager for digital inclusion and innovation, a program that came about due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There was a huge need for computers and wireless connection because all the schools closed, so students had to do remote learning,” Karen said. “No one was fully prepared for that.”
Neighborhood Allies distributed laptops and helped get families from Pittsburgh Public Schools connected to high-speed internet.
While the pandemic had ebbed by the time Karen started, the need for connection had not. Karen oversaw a project to build and launch two digital inclusion centers in Homewood. Through the centers as well as community partnerships, Neighborhood Allies offered free digital literacy classes. The classes taught people basic internet skills, how to use email, how to use Microsoft programs such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint, Google applications, and even how to use a smartphone.
“This was to fill the need for what we deemed as digital need deserts – places where there weren’t already computer, digital skills classes for adults,” Karen explained. “There was clearly such a need for these types of resources for people.”
Despite need and the success of Neighborhood Allies’ digital inclusion and innovation program, as funding streams began to dry up, the program came to a close at the end of 2025, and Karen transitioned to operations work as senior manager of operations.
“Now I’m supporting more development and fundraising efforts, data management and that kind of stuff,” Karen said. “It’s very different than running on the ground programs.”
Though the work is different, Karen appreciates Neighborhood Allies’ dedication to including communities in their work and putting residents at the forefront.
“It’s not about Neighborhood Allies coming into a neighborhood or coming in to solve a problem,” she said. “We seek out partnerships with people who are already doing the work. You tell us what you need and how can we support that.”
Karen’s creative pursuits have not taken a back seat to what she calls her “jobby jobs,” however. She’s continued to grow as an artist alongside her project management career.
“I honestly think since I moved back, I feel like I’ve taken myself as an artist a little more seriously, started showing in exhibitions,” she said.
She’s also considering opening her own business, and later this month, she’s performing at Collabaret at Glitterbox. Karen also has been part of JADED Pittsburgh, an Asian American and Pacific Island (AAPI) artist collective.
As she reflects on her journey so far, Karen notes everything is connected – and that’s the point.
“I think kind of the common thread through a lot of my work, whether that’s my ‘jobby job’ at Neighborhood Allies or my art practice and just being in my community of artists, AAIP people, of other queer people and queer people of color – nothing happens in a vacuum,” Karen said. “The work is never about an individual person and the work we’re able to accomplish. The greatest change happens when you’re working together.”