Although Sara Wald is embarking on her professional career at theONswitch, she is far from new to the public relations and journalism fields. While a full-time student at the Philip Merrill School of Journalism at the University of Maryland, Sara also held a career as a freelance publicist and journalist.

Often working from her dorm room between classes, Sara penned articles for a wide-ranging array of local and national publications. She wrote about Baltimore’s most star-studded balls and galas for Baltimore Magazine, covered a First Amendment battle that ensued between a photographer and city officials for The Silver Spring Voice (Md.) and interviewed the famed defense attorney Mickey Sherman for The Stamford Advocate (Ct.).

Sara began applying her first-hand knowledge of reporting, to writing and pitching successful stories. Within just weeks of working as a freelance publicist, she landed stories for her clients in impressive outlets such as The Baltimore Sun, The Baltimore Business Journal and the NBC-affiliate WBAL-11. In her tenure thus far at theONswitch, she has helped develop a massive integrated marketing campaign for a chain of boutiques that increased their sales nearly two-fold, helped garner dozens of new business prospects for an exhibit and event professional and helped gain major network news press attention for summer camp clients.

For most students, summer meant time to take-off and relax. For Sara, it meant time to rack up career experience through a variety of extensive internship programs she participated in. After landing a spot in the competitive 10-week internship program at Estée Lauder Companies, she learned how to successfully pitch products to A-List celebrities (like Katie Holmes!) and major beauty and fashion editors while assisting in the launch of two new products. She enhanced her solid network of media contacts while interning at The Stamford Times (Ct.) and Builder Magazine (Washington, D.C).

A self-proclaimed "foodie," Sara has authored multiple monthly restaurant review columns including one for her high school newspaper, The Westword, her college daily, The Diamondback and a suburban-D.C. newspaper group, The Voice Newspapers. Sara has crafted, conducted and reported her own "food focus groups" including a Fairfield County ice-cream taste test with a panel of kid-testers for The Stamford Times, and a D.C. suburb pizza-delivery challenge with college taste-testers for The Voice Newspapers.

Sara holds a B.A. in Journalism from University of Maryland- College Park which she attended on a President’s Scholarship. As a high school senior, she was honored with the Hartford Courant’s High School Journalism news writing award for an article she wrote about school cheating scandals.

In her free time, she holds monthly dinner parties for her friends, travels, reads and tunes into the Food Network.