As Assistant to the Provost for Strategic Initiatives, Laura oversees UWM’s online and blended programs, serving as co-Principal Investigator for the University’s Blending Life and Learning initiative and co-chair of the Online Program Council. She is the Provost’s Office liaison to University Information Technology Services and serves on the campus Web Steering Committee and is an ex officio member of the Information Technology Policy Committee. Laura was a member of the uwm.edu redesign team and led the myUWM portal project team in its initial phase of development. With the Learning Technology Center’s Alan Aycock, she is currently participating in the UW System’s eLearning Working Group. In the area of instructional technology, Laura is a co-author of the Social Work Skills Demonstrated CD-ROM and is currently working on a virtual case studies project as part of a policy practice textbook for Allyn & Bacon.

Laura co-chairs the University’s continuity of operations planning committee and leads the S.A.F.E. Alert emergency notification system project team. She is also involved in strategic planning initiatives related to the goals of developing an accredited School of Public Health, a School of Freshwater Sciences, and a higher profile for American Indian programming at UWM. She is a member of the Planning Support Team for the campus master planning process and she has oversight of executive search processes within the Academic Affairs Division.

Prior to joining the University, Laura served as assistant to the provost at Illinois State University, where she worked on the University's strategic plan. Her background is in mass communication, and she holds a master's degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota. She has completed coursework for a Ph.D. at UW-Madison in the area of adolescents' Internet use.