Transplant Advisory Committee Member
Carol Offen is a living donor, co-author of The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation, and an active kidney donation advocate. In 2006 she donated her kidney to her adult son and has been passionate about encouraging living donation ever since. As an NKF Kidney Action Committee member since 2019 and an American Kidney Fund Ambassador since 2023, she's lobbied members of Congress as well as state legislators to advance support and protections for living donors and kidney patients. She has also been volunteering with Donate Life and the National Kidney Donation Organization for several years.
Carol contributed to a 2021 textbook for transplant professionals, Living Kidney Donation (Lentine et al.), as the lead author of a "Patients' Foreword." Her varied career as a writer/editor has included turns as a freelance writer for major publications, including Esquire, Vogue, and the International Herald Tribune; an author (earlier, Country Music: The Poetry); a book editor; and an editor of health-related materials for RTI International, a nonprofit research institute. In addition to her acclaimed website/blog (“Could You Be a Kidney Donor?” at kidneydonorhelp.com), she writes regularly for Medium publications on diverse topics. She lives in Carrboro, North Carolina, with her husband.
Living Donor