Tara Lagu's passion for beating her high school rival in the science fair turns into an unusual medical career.

Tara Lagu, M.D., M.P.H, is an Academic Hospitalist in the Center for Quality of Care Research and Department of Medicine at Baystate Medical Center and an Assistant Professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine. After graduating with her MD/MPH from the Yale University School of Medicine, she completed a General Internal Medicine Residency at Brown. From 2005-2008, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, where she developed her research interest in the quality of health care in the United States. Currently, her work is focused on improving quality and reducing costs of health care in the United States and, in particular, improving access to care for patients with disabilities. She spends much of her free time thinking about, growing, talking about, taking pictures of, and eating heirloom tomatoes. Her favorite variety is Cherokee Purple.