Karl joined Reykjavik University  in 2006 and currently heads the RU NEUROLAB. Karl underwent post-doctoral training at UCLA withe Jerry Siegel  and prior to that obtained a doctorate degree in behavioral neuroscience  at the University of Iowa under Mark Blumberg.  Karl completed a bachelors degree in psychology from the University of Iceland. Since 2012 Karl has been a group leader at the rapidly growing, University of Iceland based, Biomedical Center  and is a founding member of the Reykjavik University Sleep Institute. Karl co-founded 3Z ehf, a pharma start-up focused on CNS drug repurposing.