Laura is the inaugural Chair of the Lehigh Department of Bioengineering Advisory Council and has served on the Council since 2011 during its pre-department years. During this time, she interacted with several members of the Lehigh Engineering and Life Sciences faculty in her role in Business Planning & Strategy for the Scientific Equipment Group of Olympus America, Inc.
Laura was most recently with the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Center for Innovation in the Corporate Alliances Group, working with researchers and physicians to capture patentable concepts and materials as part of a multi-university consortium with the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. At Penn, she chaired a 6-institution working group of technology transfer officers with the goal of streamlining contractual negotiations within the consortium.
Prior to moving to Penn, Laura worked at Olympus America where her responsibilities included leading the education programs for the Scientific division. In this role, she oversaw the educational grant program in which she managed the loan of equipment and personnel in support of microscopy and clinical pathology training courses. Laura directed the Olympus partnership with Florida State University involving scientific research, technology training programs, consultation, general and confocal microscopy educational websites, and execution of the annual Olympus BioScapes International Digital Imaging Competition (OlympusBioScapes.com), in which several Lehigh faculty and students were contestants. She also spearheaded a strategic donation and partnership with Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History (Washington, D.C.) for the creation of a permanent exhibit, “Q?rius” (qrius.si.edu), which was designed to encourage middle school and high school students to consider careers in the sciences through hands-on exploration of thousands of the Museum’s artifacts.
Laura began her professional career as a scientist with the vaccine company Connaught Laboratories, now Sanofi Pasteur. Working with colleagues as the company grew and merged, she was able to work closely with bioengineers in scale-up and manufacturing, as well as learning the business of vaccines through later roles in support of medical affairs and vaccine policy promotion.
Laura earned a B.S. in Biology from the College of William & Mary and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology from Cornell University, and completed her training as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School.
Laura is a member of the Bioengineering department's advisory council serving as its ex-officio member for the Dean’s Advisory Council.
