Laurisa’s commitment to animal welfare is a long time coming. She grew up with all kinds of animals and deeply accommodating parents. Laurisa aspired to be a veterinarian with a law degree but got carried away by the study of East Asia and public education. After nearly a decade in Hong Kong, she built a career leading nonprofits focused on structural change in the education system through policy, politics and advocacy.
A few years ago, Laurisa had the opportunity to tour a chicken processing plant in her home state of Delaware. What she observed was catalytic: human and environmental degradation, low wage workers in cold, soaked conditions, and lines of trucks crammed with live chickens coming in one end, leaving empty at the other. Laurisa started her move to animal policy that day.
During her transition, Laurisa joined the Humane Society Legislative Fund board, the 501c4 arm of the Humane Society of the United States. Policy issues that combat cruelty on the federal level informs local DE animal coalition of shelter and political leaders. They craft solutions to collective priorities such as cat colony health, veterinarian shortage, and prosecution.
The content of the MSL degree brings Laurisa full circle. Living in Asia with visceral proximity to food systems and the suffering of animals trapped, caged, stripped and hung in markets on the morning route to work. It was a cacophony of wailing and screeching as people shopped and commuted. She felt intense pain but did not know at the time how to tackle the source of cruelty or how to approach cultural change.
Laurisa is incredibly excited to join Lewis & Clark’s community of like-minded strategists. She hopes to learn how to approach ethics and innovation to help end the fur trade globally and animal testing in the US.