Massachusetts State Director

Cara has been working for over 20 years in education, arts and culture to help people reimagine and reshape the world. She spent five years supporting the development of new courses, community partnerships, and promising policies in the Community, Youth, and Education Studies program at her alma mater, Clark University. She has also taught courses in education, urban studies, sociology and media at Worcester State University, UMASS Boston and Wheelock College, as well as guest lecturing at a number of colleges and universities. Cara was founding Executive Director of the Transformative Culture Project, where she spent over a decade supporting arts, culture, and economic development programming in classrooms and community settings. She has produced content for MTV and NBC, and has presented at national conferences on issues of education, media, culture and equity.

Cara has provided training for non-profit leaders like Oxfam America and Facing History and Ourselves. Her work has been published by Harvard University in partnership with Lady Gaga’s Born this Way Foundation, as well as through several trade publications. She was featured in Gloria Feldt’s No Excuses: Nine Ways Women Can Change How We Think about Power and gave the keynote for the inaugural symposium for the UpTake’s groundbreaking Conflict Sensitive Journalism fellowship.

Cara’s research and policy work at the intersection of race, class, education, and cultural studies has supported dozens of community partnerships and policy initiatives. Her forthcoming edited volume, Uncovering Possible, explores the pedagogical and policy learnings of the overlapping crises of the COVID pandemic and civic health and is anticipated in 2025 from Vernon Press.