Ishita Das, PhD, is a director on the Science Philanthropy Accelerator for Research and Collaboration (SPARC) team at the Milken Institute. Her expertise lies within biomedical research, science/health policy, stakeholder engagement, workforce diversity, strategic planning, and project management. At the Milken Institute, she uses this knowledge to guide philanthropic investments to have a meaningful impact on science and health. In her role, Das advises individual philanthropists, families, and foundations and implements strategies to deploy philanthropic capital to advance health research priorities. Previously, Das was a project manager at Ripple Effect, a management consulting firm, where she led cross-functional teams to implement various science/health initiatives for federal agencies, non-profits, and public-private partnerships, including the National Institutes of Health, the Office for Human Research Protections, the National Human Genome Research Institute, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Das received her bachelor's degree in biology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and her doctorate in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor.