About
Tara Pham is a founder, patented inventor, and community builder. She comes from an intersectional background in public health, urban planning, climate justice, and arts administration. She is currently the Co-Director of Urban Data Response, which supports positive urban climate futures with community-led data projects. She previously was founder and CEO of Numina, a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer which invented and patented a Privacy-by-Design sensor and computer vision platform that mounted on public infrastructure and measured bicycle, pedestrian, and vehicular traffic in more than 50 cities globally.
Individually and with Numina, Tara has led city-scale data projects with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Code for America, Living Cities, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Clinton Foundation, and numerous municipal governments and universities. Prior to civic tech, Tara had worked in public health/urban design research, radio and print media, and arts administration. She is also a former Cornell Tech Urban Tech Fellow, Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur, Mercedes Benz EQ Fellow, Next City Vanguard, 1776vc Fellow, alumna of URBAN-X and 500 Startups, winner of the $50,000 Globalhack hackathon, and (with Numina) Global Grand Prize Winner of the Toyota Mobility Foundation’s $500,000 City Architecture of Tomorrow Challenge.
Tara grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area before living in St. Louis, MO, for 8 years. Based in New York City for the past decade, Tara spends her time in parks, at art galleries, and on bikepacking trips.
Career overview
Founder/Co-Director of Urban Data Response (current)
UDR supports positive climate futures with community-led data projects in cities.
Highlights
• With support from Cornell Tech, Clean Mobility Collective, and Consumer Reports, UDR’s first project — the Last-Mile Warehouse Accountability Project — publicly maps Amazon Last-Mile Warehouses (LMWs) nationwide and shares proven tools and model policies, to mitigate LMWs’ environmental impact.
Cornell Tech Urban Tech Fellow, 2024-2025
Tara’s research focused on how communities have led on monitoring and mitigating the environmental impact of last-mile warehouses. Click to see the Last-Mile Warehouse Accountability Project.
Founder/CEO of Numina, 2014-2024
Numina invented a proprietary, hardware-enabled computer vision technology, which pioneered Privacy by Design principles for the public realm and installed on public infrastructure (e.g. light poles) in more than 50 cities globally.
Highlights
VIDEO: Tara speaks about Numina’s privacy philosophy on a panel with New York City’s Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection and Chief Climate Officer, Rit Aggarwala, and previous Manhattan Borough President, Gale Brewer.
• Sold to governments, Fortune 100, universities, real estate, and hyperlocal neighborhood organizations in over 50 cities on 3 continents.
• Raised venture capital and grants from top climate and frontier tech investors and philanthropy, such as Elemental Impact, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Shasta Ventures, BMW, betaworks, and more.
• Honored as a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer and Global Grand Prize Winner of the $500,000 Toyota Mobility Foundation City Architecture of Tomorrow Challenge (CATCH).
Print and broadcast music media, 2007-2012
Tara ran staffs of 80+ as the Audio Services Director of KWUR 90.3FM, a Class D community radio station, and as the Managing Editor of ELEVEN Magazine, a free monthly print magazine that distributed 10,000 copies in the St. Louis, MO, area. Through these roles, Tara worked with creative entrepreneurs daily and regularly produced sold-out, multimedia, interactive events and festivals individually exceeding 1,000 people in attendance.
Gathering as Social Practice
In addition to the festivals, roller discos, showcases, and other events that Tara produced through her professional media roles, Tara was a long-time organizer of Sloup. Sloup was a monthly roaming pop-up soup dinner that helped artists learn to pitch their ideas and ultimately crowdfunded over $35,000 for over 60 grassroots creative projects, one bowl of soup at a time. In a similar model, Tara organized Potluck PAC, which crowdfunded local policy initiatives and matched the winning idea with City policymakers to get them implemented.