Our faculty are drawn from across the University of Pennsylvania’s world-class graduate schools, as well as recognized thought leaders in the philanthropic and social impact sectors. Their diverse experiences integrate knowledge for real-world social change.

Core faculty and leadership

Katherina M. ‘Kat’ Rosqueta is the founding executive director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy, faculty co-director of High Impact Philanthropy Academy, faculty director of Advising for Impact, and adjunct faculty in the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2). Founded as a collaboration between SP2 and alumni of the Wharton School, the Center for High Impact Philanthropy is the premier source of knowledge and education on how philanthropy can do more good.

Richard Marker is faculty co-director for the High Impact Philanthropy Academy and a lecturer in Advising for Impact. Marker has been in the philanthropy world for many years: as CEO of a major foundation, a trustee of several others, and a speaker to foundations, wealth management firms, and philanthropy conferences in 40 countries

Recent faculty

CHIP educational programs draw faculty from experts and practitioners in their philanthropic field and from across the graduate schools of the University of Pennsylvania.

Carra Cote-Ackah is a senior fellow at the Center for High Impact Philanthropy. Carra presently serves as Head of Philanthropy Engagement and Legacy Planning at Goldman Sachs. In this role, she leads the firm’s comprehensive philanthropic strategic offering and customized educational programs to support multigenerational legacy and stewardship.

She also serves as Chair of The Surdna Foundation (a family foundation with over $1 billion in assets), which aims to foster and just sustainable communities in the U.S. She is a member of Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO), a global leadership network.

Mirele B. Goldsmith teaches evaluation and assessment at High Impact Philanthropy Academy. She launched her evaluation practice in 1998, just as interest in evaluation began to skyrocket among funders.  She recognized that funders are the primary consumers of this service, yet few know enough about the choices involved to set appropriate expectations of evaluation.  This realization led to Mirele’s first course for funders about how to be informed consumers of evaluation services.  Since then she has taught at the Academy for Funder Education at New York University, the Milano School of New School University as well as at the MicroEdge Solutions Conferences, Institute for Philanthropy, and Grant Managers Network, among others.

Mirele helps donors and grantees to use the tools of evaluation to improve programs. With many years of experience in the trenches as a non-profit manager, she adapts the evaluation process to fit real-world time and resource limitations.  She is proud to be known as the “user-friendly” evaluator.

Witold J. Henisz is the Vice Dean and Faculty Director of the Impact, Value, and Sustainable Business Initiative, and the Deloitte & Touche Professor of Management in Honor of Russell E. Palmer, former Managing Partner at The Wharton School, The University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. in Business and Public Policy from the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley and previously received a M.A. in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Learn more

Richard ‘Dick’ Henriques is a senior fellow at the Center for High Impact Philanthropy and Wharton Social Impact Initiative. In that role, he leads the Center’s work to develop practical guidance on how to deploy capital, alongside grants, to achieve philanthropic goals. He was the lead author of the Center’s paper, Program-Related Investments: Is There a Bigger Opportunity for Mission Investing By Private Foundations? and served on the research advisory board for Aligning Equity (working title), the Center’s joint initiative with Tara Health Foundation and Wharton Social Impact Initiative examining current gender lens investing opportunities in public equity. Prior to his appointment at Penn, Dick served as the CFO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Zachary Herrmann serves as the Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives. Dr. Herrmann leads the Penn Leadership Education Institute, the Project-Based Learning for Global Climate Justice initiative, and designs partnerships and professional learning efforts focused on teacher and leader development, team effectiveness, negotiation, and creative problem solving. Dr. Herrmann is a Faculty Fellow with the Penn Environmental Innovations Initiative and chairs the Penn GSE Committee on Professional Learning.

Donald W. Kramer, lecturer at Penn’s School of Social Policy & Practice, is chair of the Nonprofit Law Group at the Philadelphia law firm of Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads, LLP. Mr. Kramer has more than 40 years of experience dealing with the concerns of nonprofit organizations, not only as a lawyer, but also as a teacher, writer, publisher, and board member. Mr. Kramer is editor and publisher of Don Kramer’s Nonprofit Issues®, a national electronic newsletter of “Nonprofit Law You Need to Know” (www.nonprofitissues.com), which he started at Montgomery, McCracken in 1989.

Danisha Patel is the Executive Director of the Long Arc Foundation, Chair of the Women of Emory Impact Circle, a Partner of Social Venture Partners Philadelphia, and a passionate advocate for increased equity in education and empowerment initiatives for women.

She supports nonprofits centered around women’s empowerment, education, and closing the achievement gap for lower income students. Her philanthropy is committed to creating equity between the funder-fundee relationship and developing strategies that further trust and community engagement. Danisha is a committed member of her local giving circle centered on impact philanthropy. Danisha received a BA in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania and completed a special field of study in International Public Policy and Management with the Wharton school.

Andy Rachlin, lecturer at Penn’s Weitzman School of Design, serves as Spring Garden Capital Group’s President where he is responsible for new product and market development, and also helps oversee the firm’s origination function.

Prior to joining Spring Garden, Andy was a Managing Director at Reinvestment Fund, a $1 billion impact investment fund, and as Chief Investment Officer of its Registered Investment Advisor subsidiary. In these roles, he led the organization’s originations, credit analysis and deal structuring teams during a period of substantial growth, and also raised more than $80 million in equity and debt capital from institutional investors for innovative impact investment funds focused on opportunities as diverse as bridge financing for performance-based social service contracts and clean energy project finance.

Ruth Shaber, M.D., founder and president of Tara Health Foundation, started her career in 1990 as an obstetrician and gynecologist at the Kaiser Permanente South San Francisco Medical Center. She served as chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology from 1997 to 2003 and spent six years as director of Women’s Health for the Northern California division of Kaiser Permanente. She is the founder of the Women’s Health Research Institute in Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California region. Ruth was medical director at the Kaiser Permanente Care Management Institute (CMI) from 2007 to 2012. At CMI she worked with Kaiser Permanente’s regional and national leaders to apply the best evidence-based and successful systems approaches to create reliable clinical performance.

Omar Woodard is executive director at HRS Management, a single family office and private investment platform of Josh Harris, co-founder of Apollo Global Management, founder of 26North, and managing general partner of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment (HBSE).

Prior to joining HRS, Omar was Vice President of Solutions at Results for America (RFA), where he advised government leaders on using data and evidence in policymaking, and supported collaborative, community-led efforts across the U.S. to accelerate economic mobility. He also founded Woodard Impact, a global philanthropy advisory firm that prepares leaders – and the people that advise them – for the future of philanthropy, corporate responsibility, and social justice.

Admissions and Program Team

Kelly Andrews is director of knowledge management and marketing, managing CHIP’s marketing, communications, editorial, digital platforms, and educational programs.

Kelly joined CHIP in 2018. She previously worked at the Wharton School, where she served in varied roles as Wharton Alumni Magazine editor, Associate Director of Publications, and most recently Senior Content Producer in Wharton Marketing and Communications, where she managed website content strategy. Her work at Wharton was honored with two CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) Circle of Excellence Gold awards, a CASE DII Accolades Gold, a College & University Public Relations and Associated Professionals Silver Award, and the Wharton Spot Award “for exhibiting the School’s Guiding Principles, going above and beyond, or for making Wharton a better place to work.”

Nick Matlin, the Program Manager for Education and Engagement at the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the School for Social Policy & Practice,  manages delivery, marketing, and logistics for CHIP’s education programs and contributes to the center’s broader applied research work.

Nick comes to CHIP with 16 years of diverse experience in the nonprofit sector, working variously as researcher, teacher, and office manager. Previous roles include conducting policy, implementation, and evaluation research for JET Education Services in Johannesburg, South Africa; teaching high school English in Wilmington, Delaware; and lecturing in English and Humanities at New York University.