Laura Pappano

Laura Pappano, an award-winning journalist, author and youth mentor, has been a frequent contributor to The New York Times and The Hechinger Report. She is a writer-in-residence at the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College and is a former Poynter Fellow-in-Residence at Yale.

Pappano is founder of The New Haven Student Journalism Project, operated through Yale University, that teaches journalism to New Haven Public School students in grades 3-8. She is a former education columnist for The Boston Globe and contributor to the Harvard Education Letter. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, USA Today, Slate, The Christian Science Monitor, NBC News, The Atlantic and elsewhere. Her story, “How Big Time Sports Ate College Life,” published in The New York Times, is included in The Norton Sampler: Short Essays for Composition (8th and 9th editions). She is author or co-author of "Inside School Turnarounds," "Playing With the Boys," "The Connection Gap" and "School Moms: Parent Activism, Partisan Politics and the Battle for Public Education."

Pappano is a moderator, speaker and media guest. She has led keynotes, including at SXSW.edu, and speaks frequently about education and gender issues. She has been a TV and radio guest, including on NPR.

A 1984 Yale graduate, Pappano was goalkeeper for the 1980 Ivy League Championship Field Hockey team. She serves on the board of the Yale Field Hockey Association, is a past board chair of Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, CT and of the West Suburban YMCA in Newton, MA.