Taryn Sabia, the assistant dean of research for USF’s College of Design, Art and Performance, said her candidacy stands on affordability and community involvement. SPECIAL TO THE ORACLE/COLLEGE OF DESIGN, ART AND PERFORMANCE

Taryn Sabia, the assistant dean of research at USF’s College of Design, Art and Performance, announced her plans to run for Tampa mayor in the 2027 election this month.

Sabia is one of nine mayoral candidates — all running to replace Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, who must leave her office in March 2027 due to term limits, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Polling for the mayoral race opens March 2, 2027, according to the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections. 

Sabia said she first considered running for mayor after the 2011 elections, when she noticed that younger Tampa voters were not proportionally represented in the voting results.

“That was my group that was going to be looking to find good jobs, buy houses and start families,” Sabia said. “If they came out in large numbers, they could actually make the decisions.”

Sabia said she felt inspired to run to address issues Tampa citizens still face — including affordability and support for local businesses.

“A number of the issues that we have seen over the past 20 years continue to get worse,” Sabia said. “Those problems haven’t been solved, so we want to try and solve them.”

Sabia said her USF role will be reduced while she runs for mayor, but she still plans to teach a pair of classes in fall 2026. 

“I will take a step back from my administrative roles in the fall because of the campaign, and I will be focused on teaching,” Sabia said. “We’ll have a plan in terms of how things carry on with me stepping outside of those administrative responsibilities.”

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Sabia said her campaign aims to inspire younger residents to vote as they build their income and assets, adding that representing younger community members is important in a city where the median age is about 36.

“We want to get out and engage as much as we can,” Sabia said. “We want them to feel like they’re part of that process with us.”

Sabia said those community members are the ones who live within the city and feel the effects of policy, and therefore, their voices in policy matter.  

“I may bring a set of skills to the table, but they live on their street, and they know what both the challenges and even some of the opportunities look like,” Sabia said.

Beyond her aspirations for the mayoral position, Sabia said her background in education and urban planning provides her with the skills necessary to step into the role and adjust to it.

Sabia graduated from Eckerd College with a bachelor’s in visual arts, according to her USF biography.

She followed this degree with three master’s — education from Harvard University, architecture at Rhode Island School of Design and urban and community design from USF, according to her USF biography.

Sabia said her experience in urban planning gives her a unique avenue to effect change in Tampa, a city with over 400,000 residents. 

“My background gives me an opportunity to understand how important setting a vision is,” Sabia said. “[Our campaign is] understanding the broad picture and then understanding smaller-scale action items that we do to get there.” 

Sabia does not have experience as a politician, but has served as a senior policy adviser to the Rhode Island Senate, where she helped counsel policy initiatives on transit and transportation.

“I saw how those community processes started to work between policy and legislation and the community and experts who were giving input on those processes,” Sabia said. 

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Sabia said she moved from Rhode Island to Tampa in 2006 to be closer to family.

Since then, she has spent nearly two decades with USF, starting as an adjunct faculty member in 2012, moving through research associate positions to her assistant dean position with the College of Design, Art and Performance, according to her LinkedIn profile.

She has also served on more than a dozen local projects in Tampa, including leading the Mayor’s Institute on City Design three times — an experience she said gave her a glimpse of a mayor’s responsibilities.

“That work in particular really introduced me to what mayors do, their role, how they coordinate with teams and how they take on big problems and challenges,” Sabia said. 

Now, Sabia is looking to work on the other side of those projects, placing community involvement at the center of her campaign and role as mayor, if elected in 2027.

“We’re really hoping the community will come out for walk-and-talks,” Sabia said. “[Community members will] talk to us about the future of the city, and those are going to be the way we build out the plan.”