A new organisation focused on female athlete health has officially launched in Boston, supported by more than $50 million in funding. The Women’s Health, Sports & Performance Institute (WHSP) aims to bring together research, education and clinical care to address long-standing gaps in how women athletes are studied and supported.
The institute has been established with financial backing from co-founders David and Jane Ott, alongside Clara Wu Tsai. David Ott is a co-founder and Advisory Director of Viking Global Investors, while Clara Wu Tsai is Vice Chair of BSE Global and a co-owner of the New York Liberty, Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center.
WHSP was co-founded by Dr. Kathryn Ackerman, a leading international researcher in female athlete health and the founder of the Female Athlete Conference. The institute is also a member institution and research partner of the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, a collaborative research initiative with a total investment of $220 million.
Dr. Ackerman said the launch reflects decades of work in the field and personal experience as both an athlete and physician.
“Female athlete health has been my focus for decades, and for decades, women athletes have been asked to perform without the benefit of research designed for them,” she said. “As an athlete, I felt the gaps. As a physician and researcher, I’ve spent my career trying to close them. WHSP is the culmination of that experience and will help us make real progress.”
The institute is launching against a backdrop of limited scientific focus on women in sports research. Less than 10% of sports science and sports medicine studies currently focus exclusively on women, a proportion that has remained largely unchanged over the past ten years.
A 2025 review of nearly 1,500 studies published across three major sports medicine journals found that fewer than 6% included menstrual status as part of the study design for female participants. Research has also shown that female athletes experience between two and eight times the rate of ACL injuries compared with male athletes competing in the same sports.
WHSP said its goal is to address these gaps through dedicated research and integrated care models designed specifically around women’s health and performance.
