Dr. Tara Leigh Tappert is an independent scholar and consultant on archives and American art. Since 2010, she has focused on the arts and the military, and artistic expressions of war trauma. Her work has been supported by the David B. Larson fellowship for Health and Spirituality in the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, and by the Center for Craft, Creativity & Design. Inspired by the artwork of Iraq and Afghanistan veteran artists, she founded The Arts & The Military, a grassroots organization that envisioned Arts, Military + Healing: A Collaborative Initiative, a 6-day event with workshops and public programs across the greater Washington, DC area in 2012. Tara holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from George Washington University.