Massachusetts Senate President Karen E. Spilka announced today that Karen Adelman-Foster has been hired as Director of Community Engagement and Municipal Policy in her office.
“Karen Adelman-Foster has extensive elected municipal experience and therefore really knows what makes municipalities tick—and what it takes to make local government effective,” stated Senate President Karen E. Spilka (D-Ashland). “Combined with her work with the greater MetroWest region, Karen will no doubt hit the ground running in engaging the communities in my district, as well as bringing their needs into focus as we craft policy on the state level.”
Adelman-Foster most recently worked as a Senior Communications Strategist at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), where she led external communications on the MetroCommon 2050 regional plan, co-led, with the New England Aquarium, the Community Partners for Resilience (CPR) project, coordinated the MetroWest Regional Collaborative (MWRC), and conceived and led the Regional Municipal Approaches to Diversity and Equity (reMADE) project. Before her work with MAPC, Adelman-Foster worked as a freelance writer and marketing consultant for a number of local and national clients.
In addition to her professional roles, Adelman-Foster served until last month as an elected member of the Natick Select Board, most recently as Chair. In this capacity, she collaborated with the Town Administrator on policy decisions and strategy on behalf of the Board, and was instrumental in establishing a new town-wide Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and Chief Diversity Officer position.
From 2006 to 2012, Adelman-Foster served as an elected member of the Natick School Committee, where she helped oversee the hiring process for the then new Superintendent of Schools. She has also served in a number of other town positions, including as a member of Town Meeting, the Finance Committee, the Charter and Bylaw Review Committee, and the Strategic Planning Review Committee.
Adelman-Foster, who resides in Natick, holds a BA in Political Science from Swarthmore College and an MFA in Fiction Writing from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. Her first day in the Senate President’s office was April 4, 2022.
