Major Fellowship Activities: Whelan researched and wrote a report entitled Foreign Aid and the Arms Trade: A Look at the Numbers. The report analyzed U.S. foreign aid in Fiscal Year 1997 and found that almost half of the aid went for military purposes, and often works against stated goals of protecting health and fostering economic growth. Her report was used as the basis for a feature on the front page of USA Today (USA Snapshots) called “Who Buys American Arms?” which appeared in November 1998. Information she sent to U.S. News and World Report on the sale of fighter jets to Thailand was used in a short article in that magazine (May 11, 1998). She also wrote several articles for Arms Trade News.
Current Activities: Whelan is a Senior Learning Advisor / Applied Learning Team Lead in the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance at USAID. She was previously a Communications Director with the Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance II Project (FANTA-2). FANTA-2 supports integrated food security and nutrition programming to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable populations in developing countries. The $100 million, five-year project, managed by the Academy for Educational Development and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, provides technical support to USAID Missions and host governments, private voluntary organizations and non-governmental and international organizations to improve nutrition policies and strategies, as well as program design, implementation and monitoring and evaluation. She was previously a manager at Chemonics International, a large international development consulting firm. She coordinated the organization’s response to avian influenza, worked with experts in health, poultry and agribusiness, food security, and trade. She was also on the steering committee of the organization’s Crisis Prevention and Recovery community of practice and on the Fragile States Working Group.