Class of 2026: Tara Blue focuses her energy on water protection and restoration
Blue has been named the 2026 Outstanding Honors College Senior.
Tara Blue is the Outstanding Honors College Senior in recognition of her undergraduate accomplishments and her commitment to exemplifying Honors College core values.
Blue’s undergraduate experience has been characterized by the dogged pursuit of her passion: restoring our water. Blue grew up on the banks of the Potomac River, awed by the massive body of water, and decided early on that she wanted to make it the center of her world.
Majoring in ecological restoration was the logical next step when she came to Virginia Tech. Her blue planet and geographic information systems minors allowed her to dedicate even more of her energy to protecting, restoring, and learning about our waters.
“Tara’s approach to her undergraduate education has been exemplary. I admire the way she has enriched her experience through the pursuit of challenging opportunities in areas of deep personal interest. Both Virginia Tech and the Honors College have benefited directly from her robust engagement, and I have every confidence that she will continue to build a rich legacy in her doctoral program and beyond,” said Rebecca Bott, dean of the Honors College.
Blue was admitted to the Honors College in her first year and jumped head-first into the experience by enrolling in SuperStudio, a high-level course that combines multiple class sections in one studio experience focusing on possible solutions to complex global challenges.
“SuperStudio was impactful,” Blue said, “because I was in a group with a bunch of seniors, which forced me to level up my game. I learned a lot about policy and a lot about reaching out to stakeholders, which is something I then implemented in my other projects when I had to coordinate talking to stakeholders and try to make decisions that would benefit the most people.”
One of these projects was Blue’s Community Environmental Education Initiative, supported by the Honors Class of 1956 Ut Prosim Fellowship, which she was awarded in her sophomore year.
Blue designed an outreach experience to teach children of different ages about water reclamation using rain barrels. Younger students learned about basic concepts such as the water cycle, and older students learned about more in-depth topics such as fertilizer runoff and the different color classifications of water. At the end of the experience, the students worked together to paint rain barrels made from industrial pickle barrels. The newly reclaimed barrels were then donated to an Arlington-based English and a second language school that maintains a community garden.
Christina McIntyre, director of professional development and national and international scholarships at the Honors College, was one of Blue’s mentors during this project, alongside Luke Juran of the College of Natural Resources and Environment. Christina continued to mentor Blue throughout her undergraduate experience, helping her with advice about internships and career opportunities.
“I remember our first meeting, and I hope [Blue] doesn’t mind me saying how quiet - and dare I say timid - she was, but to see her really grow into her self-confidence has been fun for the last three years,” McIntyre said.
Blue hasn’t limited herself to ecological restoration, either. As part of her Honors Laureate Diploma coursework, she taught a reading seminar about health and wellness, exploring approaches to holistic wellness outside of conventional – and sometimes unsustainable – frameworks.
She also elected to complete an honors faculty-student agreement in Generative AI Applications in Social Science, an artificial intelligence (AI) class offered for students not completing a computer science major. She sought out this experience to try and learn about this growing field of knowledge in the interest of broadening her perspective regarding environmental science.
Blue chose one of her minors, geographic information systems, because it allowed her to explore her existing interest in graphic design and find a way to integrate it into her future career. She discovered that using symbology and design to communicate scientific information was an area where she could make a difference.
This transdisciplinary intersection of Blue’s interests led to her undergraduate research work in the Massey Herbarium lab, where she collected occurrence data for native Appalachian plant species and mapped projected ranges for different environmental scenarios. She selected plants that have traditional culinary and medicinal uses, meaning that the range of these plants will impact the health of humans as well as the environment. She presented this research at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research and the Dennis Dean Undergraduate Research Conference.
“In order to accomplish something new and revolutionary, you have to be combining multiple subjects together. There’s just no way for science to progress or for policy to progress unless you’re coming up with new ideas – and new ideas are rooted in the intersection of different topics being brought together,” Blue said.
In addition to her degree, Blue has also served as a peer mentor for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, acted as a teaching assistant for two classes, and studied abroad in Ecuador as part of the Tulane Interdisciplinary Environmental Research and Action Program.
In her recreational time, Blue has been a member of Hillel at Virginia Tech and the Pi Alpha Xi Honor Society. She has been a member of the Virginia Tech Cross Country and Track and Field club since 2022, serving as the webmaster in 2024 and the apparel officer in 2025. As the apparel officer, she designed T-shirts for the club – another way for her to apply her interest in graphic design.
“I’m so proud of all of them. It makes me so happy when I’m out and about and I see people wearing them and modeling my art,” Blue said.
Blue will pursue a Ph.D. in biomedical and environmental health sciences at American University. She intends to continue her work combining ecological restoration and geographic information systems to measure the success of environmental restoration projects in Washington, D.C. Based on that work, she will help provide policy recommendations for how restoration projects can be more effectively carried out in the future.
“The Honors College has provided me with opportunities to take what I've learned and apply it to real world contexts to help the environment and other people, and to help myself to grow as a scientist and as a researcher. So I'm eternally grateful for that,” Blue said.
Tara Blue holds a snake during field work. Photo courtesy of Tara Blue.
