Tara Sheerin received her Ed.M. in Special Education and BCBA from Rutgers University. As an undergraduate student majoring in Psychology, she began her work with children with autism through a fieldwork course at the Douglass Developmental Disabilities Center (DDDC); having found her passion, she joined the DDDC staff first as an assistant teacher, then as a supervising preschool teacher.  Branching into the public school sector, Tara practiced for six years in a public school district as a behavioral consultant; there, she was responsible for the development and oversight of a preschool through second grade ABA program. 

Through her 13 years as Executive Director of the DATA Group, her work has focused on providing home and community based services for children with developmental disabilities aimed on acquiring appropriate language, play, leisure, self-help, and social skills in the home/community environment with the goal of increasing children's independence and successful participation in daily family and community life. 

Early intervention for young children with Autism (birth through 5) has been an area of intense interest and focus of her work.  In June 2018 the DATA Group opened its doors to Early Start Academy, a best practice Early Intervention Center for young children with Autism.  Tara’s main role as the Director of Early Start Academy is developing early intervention programs for children that provide high quality best practice behavioral services.  The outcome of services provided is to decrease the core symptoms of Autism and increase children’s abilities to learn and function in their natural environments independently.  Tara is also a certified Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) Therapist and has completed her training in ESDM at the University of California, Davis.