Tara Roberts (ODL Fellow 2019-2021) is a National Geographic Storytelling Explorer. Currently, she is following, diving with and telling stories about a group of Black scuba divers, historians and archaeologists as they search for and help document slave trade shipwrecks around the world. Her goal is to re-imagine and reframe the origin story of Africans in the Americas and to tell stories that humanize and bring empathy, nuance and complexity to their human journey.
Tara has worked as an editor for CosmoGirl, Essence, EBONY and Heart & Soul magazines. She served as Director of Communications for Ashoka, coached social innovators for Red Bull’s Amaphiko Academy and spent an amazing and fulfilling year backpacking around the world to find and tell stories about young women change agents, which led to the creation of a social enterprise that supported and funded their big ideas.
Additionally, Tara has published two books for girls and her own bold, pro-female and socially conscious magazine. She believes deeply in giving shape and substance to the original ideas of women and girls and encouraging their bold action and achievement.
While at OpenDocLab, Tara is working on, ‘My Slave Wrecks Journey’, an account of her nine-month journey to six countries around the world following a group of black scuba divers as they search for slave shipwrecks.