Tara McGuinness, Fellow and Senior Adviser, New Practice Lab, New America
Tara McGuinness is the founder of the New Practice Lab where she leads a team of designers, researchers, and project managers working to improve family economic security and well-being. She has spent her career in public service: nonprofits, congressional offices, think-tanks, and in the federal government, including the White House. She recently led the domestic policy team for the Biden Transition and was part of planning for the first 100 days of the Biden presidency. Tara served as a senior advisor to President Obama where she was responsible for leading the effort to sign up millions of Americans for free and low-cost health insurance through Obamacare. It was this deep engagement on the team implementing the Affordable Care Act––both its failures and its turnaround––that sparked her obsession with delivery and how policy reaches those who need it most. She continues to focus on the next generation of problem solvers by teaching how to solve problems in the digital age to graduate policy students at Georgetown’s McCourt School of public policy. In 2021, Tara co-authored Power to the Public: The Promise of Public Interest Technology, which focuses on how to best use data, design, and technology to solve society’s most pressing and difficult problems.