PELHAM - A memorial gathering to celebrate the life of Karen Garcia will be held Saturday, Oct. 18, at 2 p.m. at her home at 45 Harkness Road.

Karen, 53, daughter of the late Olga and John Garcia of Puerto Rico, died suddenly July 26 at the Fisher Hospice Home in North Amherst after a yearlong battle with pancreatic cancer.

She received a her bachelor's in psychology from the University of Puerto Rico, her master's in psychology at San Francisco State University and her doctorate in education at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

Karen worked in organizational management and community development programs, many of them online. She taught group and organizational behavior and management systems at the Universidad Interamericana in Puerto Rico, Latina women's studies at UMass in Amherst, social psychology at Bay Path College in Longmeadow and was the director of the In-reach/Out-reach Office at Smith College in Northampton.

She was a member of Webheads in Action, a virtual community of practice where she conducted online educational presentations for language instruction in Taiwan, Kuwait, Chicago and Brazil. She was the co-founder of OpenSourceED, an educational "moodle" for educators throughout that world that developed course offerings on a number of educational topics and was the moderator of "The Learning Classroom: Theory into Practice," a blended teacher training activity with teachers in Venezuela and a global link with educators in the US, Europe and Asia, creating mutual access to education at a global level.

She leaves her longtime companion, Gail Kenny of Pelham; her sister, Lauren Garcia; her brother, John Garcia; a niece, Ohana; three nephews, Daniel, Juan Diego and John Andrew, all of San Juan, Puerto Rico; and a niece, Olga Nieves, of Orlando, Fla.

In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, 2141 Rosencrans Ave., suite 7000, El Segundo, CA 90245 or to the Hospice of the Fisher Home, 1165 N. Pleasant St., Amherst, MA 01002.