As a Hortaio Alger Scholar and an Ecolab Scholar, Lara received her B.S in Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Her studies brought her to conduct fieldwork on various animal species in Belize, Hawaii, Tanzania, and Malaysian Borneo. In her final year, she completed a thesis on the impact of insularization on lions within Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania. She was awarded the Clarendon Scholarship and the Oxford-Oxitec Scholarship to support her DPhil research.

​In the research group, Lara examines the implications of profitable anthropogenic activities on large mammal communities in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda. Her research focuses on seismic disturbances produced by tourism and mining operations and the resulting behaviors exhibited by large mammals of conservation concern such as African elephants, leopards, lions, Rothschild’s giraffes, and chimpanzees. She aims to provide insight into the intricate dynamics between human actions and wildlife conservation, while also bridging the gap between geological and biological sciences.