Kara Palamountain is a Research Professor at the Kellogg School of Management and a Lecturer in Kellogg’s Sustainability and Social Impact Program at Northwestern University.

Palamountain has managed over 50 Kellogg field research teams conducting market entry analysis for medical technologies in over a dozen countries (Botswana, Brazil, Cambodia, China, India, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam and Zambia).

She is on the Executive Leadership Team, Steering Committee, and is the Technology Qualification and Innovation Lead of Newborn Essential Solutions and Technologies, or NEST360, a $65M grant (2024-2028) and $68M grant (2019-2023), which aims to reduce the neonatal mortality rate by scaling life-saving medical devices within the health systems of five African countries.

Palamountain has also served as an external reviewer for various projects under consideration by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a peer reviewer for Grand Challenges Canada. She also authored "Exploring the Case for a Global Alliance for Medical Diagnostics Initiative" published in Diagnostics, "Perspectives On Introduction And Implementation Of New Point-Of-Care Diagnostic Tests" and "Opportunities And Challenges For Cost-Efficient Implementation Of New Point-Of-Care Diagnostics For HIV And Tuberculosis" published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, and "Optimizing tuberculosis case detection through a novel diagnostic device placement model: The case of Uganda".

Ms. Palamountain is also the President of the Northwestern Global Health Foundation and was a co-founder of Minute Molecular Diagnostics. Prior to her work at the Northwestern Global Health Foundation and at Kellogg, Kara worked as a management consultant in Deloitte's Healthcare practice for over six years (1998-2002; 2004-2006). She received her MBA from Kellogg in 2004 and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin in 1998.