From her office near Eugene, Oregon, Tara Puyat provides consultations, training programs, assessments, and disaster assistance to a variety of cultural heritage organizations nationwide, with a focus on the western United States. In 2022, Tara presented or co-presented webinars on collections security, audiovisual collections, emergency preparedness, environmental monitoring, and renovation and moving projects as well as NEDCC’s popular Preservation 101 web course. She conducted customized training sessions for the Seattle Heritage Emergency Response Network, and she assisted her colleagues with a number of preservation assessments.
Prior to her tenure at NEDCC, Tara worked or interned in museums with cultural and natural history collections in Oregon and Alaska and was a student employee in the Beach Conservation Lab of the University of Oregon Knight Library. She most recently served as Collections Manager at the Lane County History Museum in Eugene, OR, where her work included environmental monitoring, integrated pest management, cataloging, and artifact housing initiatives. Tara formerly volunteered with the Oregon Heritage MentorCorps, providing preservation advice to institutions throughout Oregon. She also has extensive experience as a math, science, and music teacher. Tara holds an MA in Preventive Conservation from Northumbria University in the UK as well as a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies and an MA in Musicology from the University of Oregon. She has earned additional degrees in music performance and chemical engineering and is fluent in English and Filipino/Tagalog.