Tara graduated from ISU with a B.S in Plant Health and Protection in 2003. Her undergraduate independent study in our lab, mentored by Jean Batzer, focused on characterizing resistance to the fungicide thiophanate-methyl among newly discovered putative species of the sooty blotch and flyspeck complex. Her study resulted in a refereed publication in Plant Health Progress. Since leaving Iowa, Tara earned a M.S degree at University of Georgia in 2005, working with Harald Scherm on mummyberry disease of blueberry. She is now a PhD candidate in Randy Ploetz’s lab at University of Florida, researching witches’-broom of cacao.