Karin M. Dent, MS, CGC

Karin Dent, Director of the University of Utah Graduate Program in Genetic Counseling, is a certified and licensed genetic counselor at the University of Utah and Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics. She received a Master’s of Science degree in Genetic Counseling and Human Genetics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1998. She provides genetic counseling in the Medical Genetics, Neurofibromatosis, and Genetic Counseling Clinics at Primary Children’s Hospital. In these settings, she also provides clinical supervision to genetic counseling students and other healthcare trainees. Her research interests include the etiology of congenital hearing loss, the delivery of difficult news by healthcare providers, and the ethical challenges surrounding informed consent and return of results in exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing research. She has published in each of these areas. She co-chairs the UUGPGC Curriculum, Clinical Supervision, and Admission Committees; chairs the Executive and Advisory Committees; and has been a member or chair of several student research committees.

Professor Dent is a past president of the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC), was a member of several additional NSGC committees, the American Board of Genetic Counseling Credentialing Examination Committee, and chair of the Association of Genetic Counseling Program Directors mentorship program. In the Utah community, she is a member of the State of Utah Medical Education Council on the Genetic Counselor Workforce, past member of the Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing Genetic Counselors Licensing Board, and contributes to the clinical and didactic genetics education of University medical and graduate students.