Karina Sturm | Patient Advocate/Journalist
Connective Tissue Coalition

Karina is a freelance journalist from Germany who has lived in San Francisco and later Copenhagen for a total of nine years. She gained scientific knowledge through studying laboratory technology and working in research for several years. Due to a chronic illness and invisible disability, she found her passion for media production and has been working as a freelance journalist since 2013. In 2019, she finished her Master’s degree by producing a feature-length documentary called ”We Are Visible” to highlight how to improve reporting on people with disabilities in media. ”We Are Visible” has won a few awards, while Karina graduated with distinction from her journalism program. Karina’s main focus is to represent people with chronic illnesses and disabilities accurately in the media to reduce biases and stereotypes. Furthermore, she loves producing multimedia content, including video, audio and text. Karina is co-hosting a German podcast called Die Neue Norm which runs on the radio, has authored two books – a German multimedia patient guide on the Ehlers-Danlos syndromes and a book guide on ableism – and several book chapters, and currently directs a feature-length documentary called Props No More. Additionally, Karina is the editor-in-chief of a non-profit multimedia magazine published by Chronic Pain Partners and will be the News Director of the Global Disability News Network.