Laura is the Chief of Party for the USAID Forest Data Partnership, a coalition with WRI, Google, Unilever, NASA, Servir, and FAO, to build alignment around the data solutions needed to support global and regional efforts to end commodity driven deforestation and accelerate restoration. Laura is part of the Land and Carbon Lab and Global Forest Watch teams and works to deliver a breakthrough monitoring system for the world's land and nature-based carbon. Previously, Laura worked in Madagascar and Liberia and led the strategy for new feature development for MapBuilder, specifically to support the Forest Atlas platform. Prior to joining WRI, Laura worked in restoration at the Denver Botanic Gardens and conducted postdoctoral research on restoring degraded forests in New South Wales, Australia.

Laura received a B.A. from Vassar College in 2004, completed a Fulbright fellowship in Madagascar in 2005, and completed her Ph.D. in 2011 from the University of California, Irvine.