Lara is Lead Archaeologist for CITiZAN’s East Kent Coast Discovery Programme and since 2015 has been mobilising teams of volunteers to record, monitor and interpret fragile coastal archaeology. With a long career in archaeology and museums Lara was formerly acting Head of Built Heritage at MOLA, a Senior Archaeologist in the Planning team and a field archaeologist. As a curator at Åland Maritime Museum, she collaborated on the entire renewal of the museum's permanent display, designed and built online exhibitions and commissioned interactive hands on stations. As a field archaeologist she led on coastal surveys, excavations and GIS for the Åland Islands Board of Art and Antiquities and prior to this worked on many urban, rural and coastal archaeological excavations across the UK.  She spent two years creating immersive experiences for a cultural association in France, led volunteer projects and learning sessions at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum and has taught English to all ages in the UK and abroad.    Lara is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in Archaeology at Canterbury Christ Church University, where she is co-supervising Grace Conium, on an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership looking at the impact of heritage and community archaeology on Kentish coastal communities. She is an Editorial Board member for BAR Publishing’s Contemporary and Historical Archaeology book series and newsletter editor and Council member for the Society for Post Medieval Archaeology. She has an MA in Historical Archaeology from the University of Leicester and is studying for a second MA in Contemporary Art and Archaeology by distance learning at the University of the Highlands and Islands.