An architect, designer and educator, Lara has been teaching sustainability to artists and designers for over 10 years. Partnering with organizations such as Surfrider Foundation and 5 Gyres, her longstanding Rise Above Plastics class at Otis College of Design in Los Angeles has produced a multitude of creative projects, events and installations to raise awareness and influence behavior around the issue of single-use plastic pollution.
The Rise Above Plastics class is also a travel program where Otis students visit school children on the pacific coast of Nicaragua to educate them through interactive art and design activities about how plastic pollution discarded on their beaches is harming the sea life that they love so much and rely on as their primary food source.
