In 2016 Tara Roberts was living in Washington DC feeling, in a new way, the deep fractures in America, including the way we understand our history. She felt called to be part of trying to heal these divisions. It was a chance encounter with a photograph at the National Museum of African American History and Culture that changed the trajectory of her life. It was of a group of Black women on a boat in diving gear who she quickly discovered were from an organization called Diving with a Purpose, an underwater archeology group with a mission to discover and document the wreckage of slave ships scattered on the ocean floor around the world, and by doing so recover a crucial part of history.

Roberts soon quit her job and joined the group to document their work, learning to scuba dive in order to do so. She turned that journey into an award-winning National Geographic-produced podcast called “Into the Depths” and became the first Black female explorer ever to be featured on the cover of National Geographic Magazine. This work also resulted in a memoir Written in the Waters which both invites us into the fascinating and groundbreaking work below the surface of the Ocean around the globe, and her own personal transformation.

Roberts has travelled the world as a diver, backpacker, and adventurer, bringing to this conversation a global view of history and culture, and a devotion to tell the stories that can bring us together. She is currently Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society.

Here’s Tara Roberts in conversation with Shayna Schlosberg from the 2025 Portland Book Festival, on Literary Arts, the Archive Project.

Tara Roberts spent the last six years following, diving with, and telling stories about Black scuba divers as they searched for and helped document slave shipwrecks around the world. Her journey was turned into an award-winning National Geographic-produced podcast called “Into the Depths” and featured in the March issue of National Geographic magazine. Tara became the first Black female explorer ever to be featured on the cover of Nat Geo. In 2022, Tara was named the Rolex National Geographic Explorer of the Year. Currently, she is an Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society. And her book Written in the Waters: A Memoir of History, Home and Belonging hits stands in January 2025.

Tara also worked as an editor for magazines like CosmoGirl, Essence, EBONY and Heart & Soul and edited several books for girls. She was a Fellow at the MIT Open Documentary Lab. She founded her own magazine for women who are ‘too bold for boundaries..’ And Tara spent an amazing year backpacking around the world to find and tell stories about young women change agents. The journey led to the creation of a nonprofit that supported and funded their big ideas.

Shayna Schlosberg is the Vice President of Community Connections at OPB and KMHD, where she leads initiatives to ensure that both organizations authentically reflect and serve the diverse communities of the Pacific Northwest. In this role, she shapes and drives the strategy, vision, and implementation of community representation and inclusion across all aspects of OPB and KMHD’s work.

Shayna joined OPB and KMHD in 2022. Prior to that, she was the Director of Operations and Strategy at Women of Color in the Arts, a national service organization committed to advancing racial and cultural equity in the performing arts. From 2017 to 2021, she served as Managing Director of The Catastrophic Theatre, an acclaimed experimental theater company in Houston, Texas. Before that, she was Associate General Manager at the Alley Theatre, where she played a key role in expanding the theater’s international programming, particularly through partnerships with Latin American artists and companies.

Shayna’s expertise has been recognized nationally—she has served on grant panels for the National Endowment for the Arts. She is a graduate of several leadership programs, including the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture’s Advocacy Leadership Institute, Women of Color in the Arts’ Leadership Through Mentorship program, and the 2020 New Leaders Council Fellowship. She was also a founding advisory committee member of the Houston BIPOC Arts Network Fund, a groundbreaking effort born out of the Ford Foundation’s America’s Cultural Treasures initiative.

Shayna served in the Peace Corps in Armenia from 2010 to 2012.