Swearer Center for Public Service

As Community-Engaged Research Partnership Specialist, Cara is responsible for stewarding partnerships, outreach and community engagement activities focused primarily on local collaborative research initiatives. She supports research within the Division of Biology and Medicine and the Institute at Brown University for Environment and Society, with specific focus on advancing Brown’s Equitable Climate Futures initiative as well as the Brown Health Community Engaged Translational Research Core.

Cara received a joint Masters of Science and Master of Public Health from the School of the Environment and the School of Public Health at Yale in 2018. Her research explored the barriers and facilitators to access and utilization of nutritious native and traditional crops in child and infant feeding in Cochabamba, Bolivia. She also researched food insecurity among adults seeking treatment for substance use disorders in New Haven, Connecticut.

Prior to joining the Swearer Center, Cara served in a number of roles supporting local food systems and food access. Most recently, she worked as Director of Food Access Programs at Farm Fresh Rhode Island, where she was responsible for the oversight of farmers' markets and food access programs designed to increase the affordability and availability of fresh, local foods. Before moving back to her home state of Rhode Island, she also served as the Food Policy Manager at United Way of Western Connecticut, where she crafted and implemented strategic direction for the Stamford and Danbury Food Collaboratives and food security programming for the organization.