Tara Baluck

Biography

Tara Baluck joined the Counseling and Psychological Services team at Oberlin College and Conservatory in 2025 as the associate director of clinical operations. Tara is a clinical psychologist with more than 15 years of experience in collegiate mental health. Tara enjoys working with students wanting to deepen their understanding of self and others. She provides individual, couple/relational, and group therapy, as well as supervision to psychologists-in-training.

Before coming to Oberlin, Tara was a staff psychologist at Virginia Tech for six years and completed an APA-accredited doctoral internship at the University of Pittsburgh in 2019. She earned an MS and later a PhD at Eastern Michigan University and earned a BA in psychology with a minor in LGBTQ+ studies at Kent State. Her research interests focus on evaluating clinicians’ multicultural competencies and training experiences; she completed her dissertation on assessing clinician bias toward polyamorous and consensually non-monogamous clients. Prior to coming to Oberlin, Tara taught college-level courses on human sexuality, personality, research methods, and psychological perspectives on prejudice and discrimination.