Tara Moss

An experienced documentary host and interviewer with a passion for research and human stories, Moss hosted the true crime documentary series Tough Nuts – Australia’s Hardest Criminals for two seasons the Crime & Investigation Network and Amazon Prime, Tara Moss Investigates on the National Geographic Channel and the author interview show Tara in Conversation on 13th Street Universal.  She was also the host, co-executive producer and co-writer of Cyberhate with Tara Moss on Australia’s ABC, examining the phenomenon of online abuse, and most recently a reporter and host of the true crime podcast, The Man in The Balaclava, for Audible. She is an outspoken advocate for human rights and the rights of women, children, people living with pain and people with disabilities, and this focus informs all of her work. 

She has been a UNICEF Australia Goodwill Ambassador since 2007 and in 2014 she was recognised for Outstanding Advocacy for her blog Manus Island: An insider’s report, which helped to break information to the public about the alleged murder of Reza Barati inside the Australian-run Manus Island Immigration Detention Centre. 

In 2018 she was named one of the Global Top 50 Diversity Figures in Public Life, along with Angelina Jolie, His Holiness The Dalai Lama and more. As a prominent mobility aid user with CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome), she brings advocacy and visibility to issues of disability and chronic pain, and the need to normalize mobility aids, through both her fiction and non-fiction, and her many media appearances. In 2020 she accepted the honorary role of Pain Champion with Pain Australia and in 2021 she was chosen as a Global Change Maker by Conscious Being magazine for her disability and chronic pain activism. She is a 2022 recipient of the Honorary Citizen Award for the City of Victoria for her work on accessibility rights.

This year (2023) she also joined the PWLE (People With Lived Experience) committee of the Canadian Pain Society to continue her advocacy and was named as their first ever Pain Champion at their annual scientific meeting in Banff, in front of over 500 luminaries in pain research and treatment. 

Her in-depth novel research has seen her tour the FBI Academy at Quantico, spend time in squad cars, morgues, prisons, the Hare Psychopathy Lab, the Supreme Court and criminology conferences, take polygraph tests, shoot weapons, conduct surveillance, pass the Firearms Training Simulator (FATSII) with the LAPD, pull 4.2 G’s doing loops over the Sydney Opera House flying with the RAAF, and acquire her CAMS race driver licence. She has earned her private investigator credentials (Cert III) from the Australian Security Academy. 

She is a mother, a wife and a dual Canadian/Australian citizen, and currently resides in her hometown of Victoria, BC, the unceded territory of the Lkwungen speaking people, and the Songhees, Esquimalt, and WSÁNEC First Nations, where she is a recipient of both the Order of Lambrick Park, and the Honorary Citizen Award, the highest formal honour awarded by the City of Victoria. 

Recent Awards and Accolades: 

• 2014 Outstanding Advocacy Award for Manus Island: An insider’s report 
• 2014 Cosmo’s The Women Who Made 2014 Better for The Fictional Woman 
• 2014 Influential Women of 2014, alongside Malala, Laura Bates, Angelina Jolie and more 
• 2014 The Hoopla‘s The Female Eunuch Award for The Fictional Woman 
• 2015 Best Designed Non-Fiction Book Award, for The Fictional Woman designed by Tara Moss and Matt Stanton 
• 2015 Part of the University of Sydney’s Leadership for Good 
• 2015 Edna Ryan Award – ‘Grand Stirrer Award’ for making a feminist difference by speaking out for women and children, for a significant contribution to feminist debate and inciting others to challenge the status quo. 
• 2016 Champion of the West award for community service 
• 2017 Order of Lambrick Park, ‘recognizing and honouring Lambrick Park alumni who have made significant contributions or achievements since graduation.’ 
• 2018 Global Top 50 Diversity Figures in Public Life ‘recognises the achievements of individuals who have used their position in public life, for example as a campaigner, politician or journalist to make an impact in diversity.’ Listed alongside Malala Yousufzai, Angelina Jolie, Bernie Sanders, Emma Watson, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet and more. 
• 2020 Short-listed for the Danger Prize for Dead Man Switch /The War Widow • 2021 Global Change Maker for disability advocacy, Conscious Being magazine 
• 2022 City of Victoria Honorary Citizen Award, for work as an author and as a human rights advocate and advocate for accessibility and people with disabilities.