Dara Schoenwald is a cultural anthropologist, eco-activist and social entrepreneur interested in understanding how to motivate people to adopt more environmentally sustainable lifestyle practices.  She spent most of her career in the marketing technology sector, first at Microsoft Corporation’s WebTV Networks pioneering interactive television and then 9 years as a consumer insights and user experience researcher at SapientNitro, a leading global interactive advertising agency.

Dara is currently the Executive Director of VolunteerCleanup.org, a non-profit grassroots organization that engages volunteers to clean their shorelines and waterways as a way to raise awareness about marine debris, and to encourage people to reduce their reliance on single-use disposable plastics. She is a winner of the Miami Foundation’s Public Spaces Challenge for her idea to install a water bottle refill station in parks, and is now expanding that idea by partnering with Woosh Water to deploy their service of “smart” and connected water bottle refill stations in Miami Beach.

​She completed graduate studies in Cultural Anthropology and Comparative Sociology at Florida International University and studied Communications and Media Studies as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan.