Tara Yarlagadda is a multimedia storyteller and freelance writer of culture, science, travels, soul-sucking books, movies/TV and great eats. In addition to HowStuffWorks, Tara has been published in The New York Times 360, PBS NewsHour, Paste, Bedford + Bowery, Hyperallergic and The New Food Economy. She’s also worked as a fact-checker for The New York Times. Before subsisting on instant ramen as a freelance journalist, Tara received a master's degree in literary reportage from New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and a B.A in Political Science/South & Southeast Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.