Kara joined the Molecular Genetics department in the Brain Science accelerator at the Allen Institute in January 2026. She is working on the Viral Technology Core team researching, developing, and producing recombinant viruses used for connectivity studies in the brain and central nervous system. She has previous experiences doing gene therapy research and development at an industry startup and molecular disease neurobiology research at University of Utah in the School of Medicine. She is originally from Colorado and graduated from Colorado State University in 2017 with a B.S in Biochemistry.