Using design as a tool for improving community life is important to Tanya. Born and raised in Bhopal, India, she became interested in public realm design through her Furniture Design & Space Planning studies at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore, India. After moving to North America, she completed a Masters in Landscape Architecture at Rhode Island School of Design. While pursuing her MLA, she received a grant that enabled her to travel throughout Bhopal and neighbouring cities to research ongoing and evolving contamination stemming from the pesticide plant gas leak that in 1984 claimed 2,259 human lives in one night. Tanya used her graphic information system (GIS) expertise to chart the path of heavy metals concentration in surface water and groundwater. She also worked to disseminate this information to area residents and propose socially sustainable land uses in environmentally safer areas for people displaced by the ‘slow violence’ of heavy-metals contamination. While with BSC Group in Boston (2018 - 2022) as a Landscape/Site Designer, she worked on projects ranging from a large-scale streetscape redesign in Pittsfield, MA, to site analysis, community consultation and design services for a park playground and gathering space on the Boston waterfront. Her current PLANT projects include the landscape for the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Mathematics New Academic Building and the Hart House Renewal for the University of Toronto.