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Dr. Charlotte Shoup Olsen has created multiple educational programs for the Cooperative Extension Service that have been adopted in Kansas and other states throughout the nation as well as internationally. These programs focus on strengthening family relationships in the context of their individual family units and the communities where they reside. This work has created opportunities for her continuing involvement in creating a national Extension model for relationship education. More recently, she has become involved with projects that include the role of family dynamics in intergenerational farm family businesses.

In the international arena, Olsen worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia, West Africa, where she served as an Extension agent in family and consumer sciences. Her role evolved into the Liberia National Extension Leader in that field. Since that time, she has been a Kellogg Fellow with the Partners of the Americas International Fellowship Program in Community Development and is currently working on family strengthening resources for persons from diverse backgrounds.

She completed her academic work at Kansas State University and received the university’s College of Human Ecology Extension Excellence Award in 2002. Prior to holding an academic appointment as an Extension Specialist with K-State, she has held numerous university positions in student support services for persons from underrepresented families. Olsen comes from an agricultural background in southern Kansas where her family homesteaded in the 1870’s.