Dr. Tara Ness

Dr. Tara Ness works as a clinician-scientist delivering general pediatric and pediatric infectious diseases subspecialty care as well as performing global health research. She went to medical school at the University of Washington School of Medicine as part of the Montana WWAMI cohort, participating in the underserved and global health pathway. While there, she obtained her Master of Public Health (MPH) in global health, participated in a global health elective in HIV medicine in Kenya, and obtained her Graduate Certificate in HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). She went to residency at Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) where she completed the Global Child Health Pediatric Residency which included a year spent in Eswatini delivering HIV care to children and their families. She went on at Baylor/TCH to pursue a fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases, focusing her research on the use of targeted next generation sequencing for diagnosing tuberculosis and identifying drug resistance.

She moved to Anchorage in 2023 to be closer to the mountains and tackle new research challenges. In her free time she enjoys hiking, reading science fiction, knitting, traveling around the world, and wrangling her three children.