Laura Chen

Drive strategic initiatives, manage key development, partnership, and fundraising projects, support executive decision-making and cross-functional collaboration, and ensure alignment with Clay's mission to deploy AI to harness Earth observation data for people and the planet. Oversaw training and publication of world's largest open-source geospatial foundation model to date.

Civic Synergy empowers young adults with the skills and opportunity to bridge political and social divides in service of solving the pressing challenges of our time. Politically and demographically diverse teams learn collaborative leadership skills and present policy proposals to members of Congress at the end of a 6 week program.

Created experiential learning curriculum for communication and consensus-building and designed negotiations process for collaborative leadership programming for young adults

Authored Reimagining Nonprofit Governance, a report exploring the origins, challenges, and opportunities of nonprofit governance practices. Supporting and conducting research, analysis, and writing for internal and external projects focused on alternative nonprofit governance, research partnership best practices, liberatory leadership, and other projects focused on the exploration of leadership strategies for racial equity.

The Fellows Program is a graduate-level public affairs fellowship focused on effective, ethical, and collaborative leadership through focus weeks, team dynamic cohort learning, and work placements across several sectors, which have included:

- NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: To improve intra-agency collaboration, I inventoried inter-divisional workgroups and recommended best practices and agency-wide improvements for workgroups’ collaborative processes.

- Restaurant Opportunities Centers United: To inform policy making and advocacy, I administered a survey to gather information about the childcare needs of restaurant workers.

- Robert Sterling Clark Foundation: To create a launching point for alternative nonprofit governance exploration, I drafted a framing publication by interviewing field leaders and synthesizing research.

- Numina - Project: To build on Numina's NYC presence, I strategically identified use cases for transit safety technology in NYC’s public sector. I also estimated the serviceable available market related to Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding.

- Nonprofit New York - To help strengthen the Board of Directors during a time of transition, I created a report of findings and recommendations by conducting interviews and a survey for board members and staff.

Assisted research to understand, quantify, and propose solutions to a growing water affordability crisis in urban households under Professors Gabriella Carolini and Lawrence Susskind.

Interfaced with utilities and community groups, collected and analyzed spatial and non-spatial data, and assisted with writing/development of internal and external policy memos and briefs

Guided and advised three first-year classes studying Puerto Rican storm resiliency, biodiversity, and sustainable long-range shipping

Assisted Climate Change Officer for Montgomery County, Adriana Hochberg, with climate action plan implementation.

Designed and executed Recreation Dept. equity analysis using spatial data, advanced action on development of the county’s climate equity metrics, and synthesized research on GHG emissions in waste management

Directed global conference with over 500 attendees, focusing on water and resilient, equitable systems;

Fostered cross-sector connections and interdisciplinary and interorganizational community and collaboration through events, mentorship program, Student Sustainability Coalition

Explored post-synthesis treatments to improve performance of energy-efficient gas separation membranes

Publication: “Free volume manipulation of a 6FDA-HAB polyimide using a solid-state protection/deprotection strategy.” https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymer.2020.123121

Assisted Executive VP.

Evaluated FL stormwater facilities, aided with cost analysis, marketing, and website design review