Laura received her PhD in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. She has an MA from UC Berkeley and a BA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Digital Humanities @ Berkeley and BIDS Data Science Fellow, developing a course for undergraduates on computational text analysis in the humanities and social sciences. Laura is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the Northeastern University.
Laura uses computational methods and open source tools, principally automated text analysis, to study social movements, culture, gender, institutions, and organizations. She is particularly interested in developing computational tools that can bolster the way social scientists do inductive and theory-driven research.
When she's not being an academic, Laura loves to travel, hike, and run. She also plays the violin and is always looking for ways to keep that part of her life.