Laura first joined Depaul in March 2022 as a Consultant and then part-time staff member as Senior Humanitarian Adviser to support the Ukraine emergency response. She has supported local organisations and communities in emergencies for over 20 years. She has worked in beautiful but challenging places including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Eritrea, Sudan, DRC and Zimbabwe. Laura strives to support local actors to develop their own solutions to local needs and apply humanitarian concepts in practical, innovative ways.
Before joining DPI, Laura established and managed CAFOD’s global Humanitarian Capacity Strengthening programme and team. She developed capacity strengthening approaches and tools which have been adopted and adapted across the humanitarian sector. As a Humanitarian Response Officer Laura was a Humanitarian Officer providing expertise on Core Humanitarian Standards, nutrition, food security and cash transfers. Laura worked with church organisations in Eritrea to collect data on childhood malnutrition which helped raise millions for life-saving nutrition programmes.