From 2020 to 2021, Sara worked as a lead researcher and GIS analyst with the Nimrud Rescue Project at the Smithsonian Institution. She developed a digital preservation plan for recovered Neo-Assyrian artifacts that had been destroyed by ISIS in northern Iraq. This work involved organizing, fact-checking, and researching over 14,000 photographs and their metadata to ensure that information gathered from fieldwork was easily accessible, operable, reusable, and digitally preserved.

The Nimrud Rescue Project is a collaborative initiative aimed at recovering fragments of Neo-Assyrian sculptures that were bombed by ISIS in 2015–2016. It also focuses on developing a long-term plan for preserving the site and its architectural remains through capacity-building and support for Iraqi heritage professionals. The Smithsonian Institution has been working with the Nineveh Provincial Office of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) since early 2017, in partnership with the Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage (IICAH) in Erbil, Iraq.

The Smithsonian has approached the recovery and preservation of the site in collaboration with Iraqi stewards. Alongside the SBAH Nineveh Directorate, the Smithsonian helped define site needs and develop the necessary skills for a team of local archaeologists—known as the Nimrud Rescue Team (NRT)—to recover and protect stone sculpture fragments scattered across the site. A purpose-built storage facility has been completed, and the NRT has begun the recovery process using the "First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis" (FAC) methodology, developed by ICCROM and other institutions, to systematically recover cultural heritage objects following a disaster.