Author: Laura Merriman

Laura Merriman was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and lived in Branford College at Yale University during her first five years. Laura also spent a portion of her childhood living in and attending school in a small village in southern France. She studied sociology while at Yale University. During this time, she also taught French in Morocco, studied female genital cutting/mutilation (FGC/M) prevention communication campaigns and gender and development in Mali, and interned at an AIDS clinic in Rwanda. After working on a maternal mortality report for Amnesty International in Paris and living and interning in Thailand and Laos, Laura returned to the U.S. to attend graduate school at New York University (NYU). While receiving master’s degrees in global public health and social work, she worked with families at risk for homelessness in East New York, Brooklyn, and conducted field work on factors influencing contraception utilization in Ethiopia. She also began writing about politics and social justice in the Huffington Post, in addition to writing a book. Since graduating from NYU, Laura has worked as a field organizer on the Wendy Davis Campaign in San Antonio, Texas, and as a case manager with torture survivors in Washington, D.C.