Women We Love 2022: Tiara Moore

Tiara Moore

by Courtney Baxter

Dr. Tiara Moore’s career started on spring break. As a biology major at South Carolina’s Winthrop University, Moore signed up for a Tropical Ecology course “because they were going to Costa Rica,” she tells GO. But a vacation turned into much more when Moore arrived. She remembers: “We were doing little experiments, and we were seeing science as it happened and I thought, ‘You’re all getting paid?’” Since that fateful trip, Moore has earned a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and conducted research around the world, including in Bali, French Polynesia, and the Chesapeake Bay, exploring the biodiversity of whole ecosystems through a single soil sample. Along with her work at The Nature Conservatory in Washington, Moore strives for inclusivity as the founder of both A WOC Space and Black in Marine Science (BIMS), for which she is also the CEO. “In the STEM field, we started [going] to all these diversity trainings, but [they were] always taught by a white man and [weren’t] really action-oriented,” Moore recalls. Through consulting and training programs, Moore says, A WOC Space facilitates “safe spaces for women of color in the workspace, utilizing our stories and personal experiences, and [figuring out] how we can find folks to be better active bystanders that are allies and advocates.” Her next goal? “I would love to see a marine science institution partnering with a historically Black college or university, in a place where Black people actually live, who are the most impacted by climate change, marine pollution, and things like that,” Moore says. “I would love to build my own lab.” –LE


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