Lara graduated with her Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in 2008 in the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences. She completed her Master’s at San Francisco State University on the feeding ecology of bottlenose dolphins off the coast of Belize. Lara began diving in 1998 and is now an advanced cave side mount diver. Her doctoral research project investigated the biology and ecology of cave-adapted animals found in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. She uses scientific diving techniques to access the extreme underwater cave environment to collect data. Lara is a management and program analyst with NOAA, where she assists with the analysis, production, and coordination of NOAA budget and appropriations information with the National Weather Service line office as well as climate, research and development activities. In this position she regularly interfaces with NOAA Leadership, the Department of Commerce (DOC), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and Congress. She also collaborates on the production of background materials to support NOAA’s Budget Request, including one pagers, Q&As, presentations, talking points, and congressional testimony. To support these activities, she serves as the NOAA budget representative on various NOAA teams such as the Annual Guidance Memorandum (AGM) Strengthening Science Team, AGM Weather and Water Team, NOAA headquarters climate team, Tsunami Coordination Team, and any other efforts that are appropriate. In addition, since 2014 she serves as executive officer for the NWS Office of Operational Systems at NOAA.