Karen Dempster

Karen Dempster serves as a procurement specialist focused on advancing scientific and technical research initiatives through strategic contracting. She plays a critical role in executing acquisitions that support federal R&D priorities, ensuring compliance with federal acquisition regulations while fostering innovation in life sciences and engineering domains. Her portfolio centers on soliciting and managing contracts for advanced research services, including experimental design, data analysis, and laboratory testing, primarily within the physical, engineering, and life sciences sectors. She works closely with program officers and technical evaluators to align procurement strategies with agency mission objectives, ensuring that contract requirements are technically sound and competitively sourced. Dempster engages with a diverse range of contractors, including academic research institutions, independent laboratories, and specialized R&D firms, often selecting vendors based on technical capability, past performance, and scientific expertise rather than size or socioeconomic status. Her contracting patterns reflect a preference for full and open competition, with no set-asides utilized across her portfolio. This approach prioritizes merit-based selection and ensures access to the broadest pool of qualified technical talent, enabling the agency to secure high-quality, mission-critical research services. Her contracting activity is entirely focused on open competition, with no use of 8(a), HUBZone, SDVOSB, or other socioeconomic set-asides. This reflects a deliberate strategy to prioritize technical excellence and operational efficiency over socioeconomic preferences, aligning with agency mandates that emphasize scientific rigor and performance outcomes in research procurement. Dempster’s primary procurement focus lies in NAICS 541715, 541714, and 541712, covering a spectrum of research and development activities in physical, engineering, and life sciences. She regularly acquires services such as clinical trial support, analytical instrumentation development, environmental modeling, and laboratory automation systems. Her domain expertise spans biomedical engineering, chemical analysis, and applied physics, making her a key liaison between scientific stakeholders and the acquisition community to translate complex technical needs into enforceable contract deliverables.