Kara Whelply is an associate director on the Science Philanthropy Accelerator for Research and Collaboration (SPARC) team at the Milken Institute. She leverages her expertise in strategic planning, stakeholder engagement, philanthropic funding, and therapeutic development to advise individual philanthropists and nonprofit organizations on methods to advance their mission and accelerate the development of treatments. Her portfolio includes strategic planning and implementation for biomedical nonprofits along with advancing therapeutic development of treatments for bipolar disorder and follicular lymphoma. Whelply is passionate about biomedical venture philanthropy and seeks to advise philanthropists on how to engage in the practice. Prior to joining the Milken Institute, Whelply was an ORISE fellow at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the US Food and Drug Administration where she focused on regulatory data and knowledge management systems to improve efficiency and workflow for regulatory reviewers and administrators. Whelply received both a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Public Health with a concentration in epidemiology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Alabama. She is based in the Institute’s Washington, DC office.