PHOTOVOICE Worldwide - About the Author

Biography
As of: 10-07-2011

Laura is a researcher and educator with international experience communicating research, program, and policy impacts for global audiences. She is a senior research associate and lecturer in the Institute for Behavioral Health of the Schneider Institutes for Health Policy, Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA. Laura has a broad background in visual and narrative methods of research, health policy advocacy, health communications, lived experience with chronic conditions, disability policy, community-based participatory research, military health, and translation of research findings to community interventions and trainings. Her current assignments include serving as a member of different teams a) evaluating a nine-state effort to close the addiction treatment gap through communications, advocacy, and coalitions, b) seeking to understand the impact of parental deployment on psychotropic medication use among the children of Army active duty soldiers, c) investigating payment incentives on patient adherence to medical treatment, and d) studying the health of combat veterans.

Since 2004, Laura has been investigating lived experience with brain injury and psychological health using innovative visual and narrative methods with civilian and service populations. She became interested in brain injury because her brother, who was a youth hockey player in the 1960s and 70s, had multiple concussions on and off the ice and suffered cognitive and mental health challenges—perhaps as a result. Before coming to Brandeis, Laura worked for more than 20 years in international development as a photojournalist, writer, editor, and educator for UNICEF, World Food Programme, CARE, the United States Information Agency (USIA), and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

She has lived and worked in Africa, Asia, and Latin America for 14 years; her assignments often involved encouraging community partnerships, project replication, and behavior change—for example, to improve girls’ access to education and prevent transmission of HIV. Since 2001 she has pioneered the use of participatory visual research methods (including “photovoice”) in the US and South Africa to engage patients, youth, and communities in picturing local problems and strengths and motivating action for change. Much of her research since 2004 has focused on health policy, in particular including the perspectives of patients on their health and healthcare experiences in the policy-making process.

Dr Lorenz has presented and published on identity after brain injury, the patient-provider relationship, issues of voice and representation in health policy research, the use of visual research methods to involve communities in health, visual and narrative methods of research and analysis, and holistic communications for policy advocacy. She teaches social policy and conducts trainings in visual research methods. Her book Brain Injury Survivors: Narratives of Rehabilitation and Healing is available from Lynne Rienner Publishers under their series Disability in Society. She has published in peer review journals in the fields of sociology, health, visual studies, and medicine. Laura received her PhD in social policy from Brandeis University (2008) and a Master of Education (Instructional Design/Adult Education) from the University of Massachusetts Boston (2001). She holds a BA in English Literature from Bowdoin College (1976), and is a Certified Brain Injury Specialist (CBIS) from the Academy of Certified Brain Injury Specialists ACBIS (2010).

View Laura's Curriculum Vitae for more detailed information. Please feel free to visit the other portions of the site listed below here as well, view more information about her work and what she is doing now.

Visit her personal website and see what projects, papers, presentations, etc she has been up to by clicking here: www.lslorenz.com

See Laura's Faculty Profile at: Scientist and Research Staff Guide at - The Heller School of Social Policy and Management Brandeis University

Institute for Behavioral Health: Scientists and Research Staff - Senior Research Associate: Laura Lorenz - Schneider Institutes for Health Policy