Kara is a Senior Program Officer at WHGI, working on the NextGen portfolio of youth-led and youth-focused programs. She is a technical expert in gender and youth, with specific applications to adolescent health, sexual and reproductive health, and child marriage. After starting her career in advocacy with non-governmental organizations, she has spent the last six years at JHPSH managing multi-country research studies, developing gender-transformative interventions, and creating global youth leadership opportunities.

Kara came to JHSPH to lead a study on child marriage in humanitarian settings in five countries. She then turned back to development contexts as the Assistant Director for the Global Early Adolescent Study, through which she examines how gender norms impact adolescent health as they grow up. She has brought these learnings to developing and implementing programs focusing on building a supportive gender equal environment for youth. Though she has worked across five continents, her French language skills have brought much of her work to the West and Central Africa and Middle East North Africa regions.

Kara holds a Master of Public Health from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and a Bachelors in Biology and Public Health from Washington University in St. Louis. She lives in Baltimore and is an avid runner and baker.