She received her Ph.D. in Business Administration from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. Her teaching interests are in the area of organizational behavior and leadership. Laura's research interests include the meaning of relational distance in leader-follower relationships, leadership in virtual settings, and emergent leadership in the context of collective action. Laura is an active member of the Academy of Management. She is the PDW Chair for the Network of Leadership Scholars and is a past-President of the New Doctoral Student Consortium. Following her MBA studies, she worked as a management consultant for A.T. Kearney, in a variety of marketing and strategy roles at Disney Online and FirstLook.com, and as a co-founder of Eureka Review, a Los Angeles-based SAT tutoring company.