Kelsey Barcomb, PhD, is a senior associate with MI Philanthropy’s Science Philanthropy Accelerator for Research and Collaboration (SPARC), and serves as a program manager at Breakthrough Discoveries for Thriving with Bipolar Disorder (BD²). She uses her background in biomedical research and project management to oversee grants management and community building within BD².

Barcomb received her doctorate in pharmacology from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus (CU-AMC), studying learning and memory processes in the brain. She then completed two postdoctoral fellowships researching neural stress and reward pathways at Brown University and CU-AMC. After her postdoctoral work, Barcomb transitioned to a role as project manager for a multi-institutional team funded by a grant through Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP). In this position, she continued working in a laboratory setting while also gaining experience in grant management and team leadership. Barcomb is based in the Institute’s Washington, DC office.