Our Founder
Ariana Tarr founded Forest Pond Associates to help organizations improve health by making research, data, and operations work better together. Her focus is on turning complex information into practical action. She helps leaders build systems, teams, and processes that produce work people can actually use.
“The failure to translate health research findings into practice costs lives. Less than 20% of research on the efficacy of new interventions or practices finds its way into ongoing clinical practice, and it takes between 15 and 20 years for this translation to occur.” – Lynn Kemp, Translational Research: Bridging the Chasm Between New Knowledge and Useful Knowledge (2019)
Ariana is a biochemist and master’s level clinical researcher by formal education. Over the course of her career, she has worked on very different sides of the basic, clinical, and translational spectrum (and sometimes the chasm between them all). That experience shaped how she thinks. Good science is not enough on its own. Good technology is not enough either. Real progress happens when science, technology, and operations are connected in a way that works in practice.
Forest Pond Associates was built around that idea.
Ariana’s Journey
1.0: the site side
She started on the clinical research site side working 1:1 with patients.
Her early work was grounded in research operations at Geisinger and Penn State, where she worked across clinical research, translational science, cohort development, accrual, and research support. That experience gave her a direct view into how studies actually run, where delays come from, and what research teams need from systems and support. It also gave her experience across large and complex research environments, including work tied to broad institutional portfolios and research infrastructure at Geisinger (very digital forward value based closed health system – payor and provider) and Penn State College of Medicine as the Trial Innovation Network institutional liaison. Site staff have called her the “director of difficult.”
This work is personal to her. Ariana lost both of her parents to cancer early in life. That experience shaped how she sees the work. It is one reason she cares so deeply about shortening the time between discovery and real-world use. The goal is not speed for its own sake. The goal is to help more people benefit from better research, better decisions, and better care while there is still time for more of life’s biggest moments.
2.0: the technology side
She then moved to the B2B SaaS side.
In leadership roles connected to REDCap Cloud, Innovative Supply Solutions, and related software and services environments, Ariana worked across electronic data capture, real-world data, customer success, and operational support. She led global delivery teams serving research and life sciences clients and gained a close understanding of what happens when technology, service delivery, and client needs do or do not line up.
3.0: the services side
That experience led to a simple realization: most organizations do not need one more product.
They need better translators between technical and business teams. They need someone who understands the science, the systems, and the operational realities well enough to connect them.
Forest Pond Associates was built around that need, helping clients connect science, technology, and operations through practical services that make systems work in the real world, at any scale.