Prior to joining EMC, Karin Breitman worked as a Computer Science Professor in the Informatics Department of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. She graduated in Electronic Engineering from the Rio de Janeiro State University, got her MSc. degree in Computing Science from Rio de Janeiro Federal University and her DSc. degree in Informatics from PUC-Rio.

She is the author of over 70 research papers in conference proceedings and journals and has received numerous research grants from public institutions and private industry, including NASA, CNRS, IBM, Hewlett Packard and, most recently, Microsoft. Her research focuses on Software Engineering and its applications in Knowledge Representation, Linked Data, Semantic Web and Cloud Computing. She recently published "Video Processing in the Cloud" and "Patterns, Programming and Everything" by Springer Verlag.

She actively collaborates with the Computer Society in their gender equity initiative, and received the Google Brazil Women in Information Technology award for her contribution in promoting the importance of gender related issues in her country.

She was recently awarded the Software Engineering Foundation Innovation Award for her work in Cloud Computing conceptual modeling, and with the Sócio Destaque award, for her work developing international scientific journals for the Brazilian Computer Society. She is the Publications Director of the Brazilian Computer Society (SBC), and IFIPs TC-1 Secretary. She belongs to SBC, ACM and IEEE.