Tara is a committed advocate for sustainable development and community-centered progress, driven by a love of storytelling, innovation, and technology. Her career began in library and information services, where she spent a decade designing world-class research curriculum, leading experiential and service-based learning initiatives, and coordinating large-scale community and academic events. After ten years advancing educational programs across K–12 and higher education, Tara felt compelled to apply her strengths to tools that shape real-world systems. She now specializes in complex geospatial and data science technologies that enhance efficiency, strengthen community planning, and support sustainable development.

Thanks for stopping by my site! I’m a dynamic person who loves new challenges, new experiences, and finding meaningful ways to serve the world. Across all the paths I’ve taken, a few themes have remained constant:

• A love of community, learning, and connection

• A desire to leave life better than I found it

• A gift for writing and communicating with clarity

• A natural pull toward technology and problem-solving

Our lives are defined by pivotal moments. Here are a few of mine:

• Growing up on the New England coast

• Losing my mother at a young age

• Serving with the American Red Cross after Hurricane Katrina

• Ten years of teaching phenomenal young people

• Running marathons

• Hiking the entire Appalachian Trail

• Changing careers in my late thirties

• Living through Hurricane Helene and serving public lands before and after the storm

Pivotal moments shape us and we shape the world in return. Losing my mother taught me deep empathy, which guides how I work with students, teams, and communities. Hiking the Appalachian Trail strengthened my commitment to sustainable development and the protection of natural spaces. Running marathons taught me discipline and endurance and helps me to lead with high expectations. Living through community loss has prepared me to lead in spaces where continuity, resilience, and long-term planning matter most.

Raised by the ocean and seasoned in cities, I found my clearest purpose in the quiet of the mountains. I’ve spent several meaningful years supporting the U.S. Forest Service and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, even amid national budget constraints that made federal careers challenging to sustain. Today, I serve as an Operations Associate with Blyncsy, a division of the international engineering firm Bentley Systems. My team develops innovative solutions at the intersection of machine learning, GIS, and transportation infrastructure. I help strengthen products and processes serving global transportation systems, from asset detection and degradation assessment to natural disaster response. Most recently, our team supported the City of Altadena in the aftermath of the Los Angeles fires.

I am now *completing my Master’s in Spatial Data Science at Penn State, which has allowed me to dive deeper into geospatial analysis, machine learning, and ecological modeling. I’m excited to bring this expanded technical foundation back to what I love most: working alongside communities to build stronger, smarter, and more resilient systems, both on the ground and behind the scenes.