Erika Tarantal has anchored the news in Boston for more than a decade, and if you watch WCVB you already know her steady delivery and her soft spot for stories about regular people doing good in their towns.
This guide covers her age, her career at Channel 5, and the Erika Tarantal family details, husband, kids, and parents, that keep filling up search results. It also tackles the salary and net worth numbers head-on. Where the internet disagrees with itself, and it does a lot here, I’ll tell you straight.
Who is Erika Tarantal?
Erika Tarantal is an Emmy Award-winning journalist at WCVB Channel 5, the ABC affiliate in Boston. She anchors and reports for NewsCenter 5 and contributes to the station’s long-running newsmagazine, Chronicle.
She’s been part of the WCVB team since February 2014. Before Boston, she spent years in New York and Connecticut newsrooms, working her way up from general assignment reporter to anchor.
Colleagues and viewers tend to describe her the same way: reliable, warm, and genuinely curious about the people she covers. That last part matters, because a big chunk of her recent work centers on community stories.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full name | Erika Tarantal |
| Born | September 8, 1979 |
| Age | 46 (as of 2026) |
| Birthplace | Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, USA |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Connecticut College (B.A., Government) |
| Profession | Journalist, news anchor, reporter |
| Employer | WCVB Channel 5 (NewsCenter 5), Boston |
| Years active | 2005 to present |
| Husband | Reported as Lucas Nathan (not publicly confirmed by Erika) |
| Children | Yes (first child born spring 2012) |
| Height | Not officially confirmed (estimates vary) |
| Net worth | Not verified (estimates vary widely) |
Erika Tarantal age and where she grew up
Erika Tarantal was born on September 8, 1979, which makes her 46 years old in 2026. That birth date shows up consistently across her public bios, so the Erika Tarantal age question is one of the few details you can trust.
She grew up in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, a suburb just north of Philadelphia. It’s a quiet, leafy place, the kind of town where a lot of kids end up leaving for bigger cities. She did too.
If you’re doing the math for a specific date, remember her birthday lands in early September. So her age ticks up right around the start of fall each year.
The Erika Tarantal family: parents and roots
The Erika Tarantal family story starts with two artists. Her father, Stephen M. Tarantal, worked as a painter and academic. Her mother, Elsa Johnson, is a sculptor and professor.
Both parents worked at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where her dad held a dean role and her mom taught. Growing up in a house run by two working artists probably shaped how she sees people and stories, even if she ended up pointing a camera at real life instead of a canvas.
Elkins Park itself sits in Montgomery County, an area known for its old estates and its ties to the Philadelphia art world. For a kid raised by a painter and a sculptor, it was a fitting backdrop.
An artist household
Public records don’t say much about siblings, so treat anything claiming she has a brother or sister as guesswork. What’s clear is that the Erika Tarantal family leaned creative and academic, not media.
She’s the one who broke into television. And she did it the slow way, one newsroom at a time.
College and the paralegal years before TV
Tarantal studied at Connecticut College and earned a bachelor’s degree in Government. That’s a bit of a surprise for someone who ended up on the anchor desk, but it makes sense once you see her early resume.
Before broadcasting, she worked as a paralegal for the Office of the Attorney General in Boston. She also spent time as a production assistant at WHDH-TV in Boston, which is likely where the news bug bit.
So the path wasn’t a straight line. She circled the industry, got a taste of it behind the scenes, then committed.
How her broadcast career began
Her on-air career took shape in the mid-2000s. She started at News 12 in the Bronx as a general assignment reporter, then got promoted to anchor of the station’s weekday morning newscast.
In October 2005, she moved to WVIT in Hartford, Connecticut, working as a weekend evening anchor and a weekday reporter. Local news is a grind, and she was doing double duty to build her reel.
From the Bronx to Hartford to New York
December 2007 brought the big jump: News 4 New York, NBC’s flagship station in the country’s largest media market. She anchored weekend newscasts there and filled in as a co-anchor on “Today in New York.”
During those years she covered heavy stories, including the death of Pope John Paul II, the election of Pope Benedict, Superstorm Sandy, and the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting. That’s a lot of hard news for one reporter to carry.
She left WNBC in January 2014 and headed to Boston.
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Erika Tarantal at WCVB today
WCVB brought Tarantal on in February 2014, and she’s been a fixture at NewsCenter 5 ever since. Her role has shifted over the years, which is normal for a station anchor.
Earlier in her WCVB run, she anchored the midday news at noon and reported for NewsCenter 5 EyeOpener. More recently, station announcements list her co-anchoring the 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. newscasts. So if you’ve noticed her at different times of day, you’re not imagining it.
The anchor desk and the field
She still reports from the field too, filing stories that run on WCVB and get picked up across Hearst stations nationwide, from Baltimore to Sacramento. Her recent bylines cover everything from Boston Marathon families to a senior center sewing circle stitching teddy bears.
That mix, anchoring plus reporting, keeps her byline active and her face on multiple newscasts. It also means she rarely disappears for long, which is part of why viewers feel like they know her.
Chronicle and the “5 For Good” beat
In January 2017, Tarantal joined Chronicle, WCVB’s award-winning newsmagazine, as a reporter. Chronicle is a New England institution, and getting a regular spot there is a big deal for a local journalist.
She’s also closely tied to the station’s “5 For Good” series. Those segments spotlight people around Massachusetts who quietly help their neighbors, from volunteers to small nonprofits.
It’s clearly the work she loves most. You can hear it in how she talks about it.
Awards, including that Gracie
Tarantal is an Emmy Award winner, which she’s earned over a long career of solid reporting. But one honor stands out for how personal it feels.
In 2017, her “5 For Good” story called “Food Truck Fighting Hunger” won a national Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media. The piece followed a local couple who use their food truck, Daniel’s Table, to hand out meals to families in need.
That’s the kind of story that doesn’t chase clicks. It just does good, which fits her whole approach.
Erika Tarantal husband and private life
Here’s where the internet gets sloppy. The Erika Tarantal husband question gets answered a dozen different ways across content sites, and not all of them agree.
The most commonly cited name, including in her Wikipedia-derived bio, is Lucas Nathan. Some other sites list his surname as “Thomas,” which is a red flag that people are copying each other without checking.
What’s actually confirmed
Tarantal keeps her personal life fairly quiet, and she hasn’t made her marriage a public talking point. So while “Lucas Nathan” is the name most sources use, treat the Erika Tarantal husband details as reported rather than confirmed by her directly.
Wedding dates and venue claims float around too. There’s no reliable public record to nail those down, so I’d take them with a grain of salt.
The Erika Tarantal family at home
Beyond her husband, the Erika Tarantal family includes at least one child. Her own bio notes she had her first child in the spring of 2012, two years before she moved to WCVB.
Some sites go further, naming a specific daughter and birth year or a second child. Those extra details aren’t well sourced, so I won’t state them as fact. What’s safe to say is that she’s a working parent who’s kept her kids out of the spotlight.
One personal detail she has shared openly: she’s a vegetarian, and she’s mentioned it on air over the years. Small thing, but it’s real, unlike a lot of the invented trivia out there.
Height, salary, and net worth: what people ask
These three come up constantly in searches, and honestly, they’re the shakiest numbers in her whole profile.
On height, you’ll see 5 feet 4 inches on some sites and 5 feet 6 inches on others. Neither comes from an official source, so pick your favorite guess and move on.
The salary and net worth numbers
Salary estimates for Tarantal range wildly, from around $25,000 on the low end to well past $100,000 on the high end, with random exact figures like $88,500 thrown in. WCVB doesn’t publish anchor salaries, so every one of those numbers is an estimate someone typed with confidence they didn’t earn.
Net worth guesses usually land in the $1 million to $5 million band. Same problem: no financial disclosure backs them up. A veteran anchor in a top-10 market likely does well, but treat any specific dollar amount you see as a ballpark at best.
What’s next for Erika Tarantal
As of 2026, Tarantal is still anchoring and reporting at WCVB, still contributing to Chronicle, and still working the “5 For Good” beat. There’s no public sign she’s planning to leave.
She recently emceed a Boston-area charity event tied to her community reporting, which tracks with everything else about her. The work and the person seem to point the same direction.
For a journalist who started as a paralegal and built up newsroom by newsroom, that’s a pretty steady place to be.
Conclusion
Erika Tarantal’s story is easy to admire because most of it checks out. Born in 1979, raised in Elkins Park, trained at Connecticut College, and climbed from local reporter to Emmy-winning Boston anchor over roughly two decades.
The parts people search for most, her husband, her salary, her net worth, and her height, are exactly the parts the internet fumbles. So enjoy the confirmed stuff, and don’t let anyone sell you a made-up dollar figure as gospel.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How Old Is Erika Tarantal?
Erika Tarantal age is 46, based on her birth date of September 8, 1979.
Who Is Erika Tarantal’s Husband?
The Erika Tarantal husband is most often reported as Lucas Nathan, though she hasn’t publicly confirmed the details herself.
Does Erika Tarantal Have Children?
The Erika Tarantal family includes at least one child, with her first born in the spring of 2012.
Where Is Erika Tarantal From?
Erika Tarantal was born and raised in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia.
What Does Erika Tarantal Do At WCVB?
Erika Tarantal anchors NewsCenter 5 newscasts and reports for Chronicle and the “5 For Good” series.
What Is Erika Tarantal’s Net Worth?
Erika Tarantal’s net worth likely falls between $1 million and $5 million, though no official figure exists.
How Tall Is Erika Tarantal?
Erika Tarantal’s height lands somewhere around 5 feet 4 inches to 5 feet 6 inches, with no official source to settle it.
When Did Erika Tarantal Join WCVB?
Erika Tarantal joined WCVB in February 2014 after years at News 4 New York.
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