About

Laura Lockard, Laisamis, Kenya 2022

Laura Lockard creates and implements strategic communications and branding plans, leads and trains collaborative teams, builds coalitions, and energetically tackles complex and controversial issues.

Always with a public affairs frame, Laura’s wide range of strategic communications and advocacy efforts embrace tactical campaigns to support broader initiatives.

Laura’s experience includes global public health programming and development initiatives, with a particular focus on the One Health interconnectivity of humans, animals, and the environment, such as zoonotic disease, health impacts of climate change, animal health, and food security.

Laura has stewarded global health outreach collaborations with federal and international health organizations such as: the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), National Institutes for Health (NIH), United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Feed the Future, Global Health Security Program, and Democracy Human Rights and Governance, World Health Organization (WHO), World Animal Health Organization (OIE), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), among others.

Laura currently works with research leaders, universities, and non-profit organizations across the African continent, with additional international development expertise in Central Asia and the Caucuses. Laura has provided global health advocacy for Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine Paul G. Allen School for Global Health advising on global health initiatives and global media relations. Laura consults for WSU Impact! the external advocacy initiative connecting citizens to their legislature.

In addition to global strategic communications and brand development, Laura formerly held a variety of service leadership positions as Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs at the Woodland Park Zoological Society, Communications Director for the Seattle City Council, Deputy Communications Director for Governor Christine Gregoire. Laura previously served as the Country Director for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, senior consultant for APCO Worldwide Public Affairs, National Organizer for Earth Day 2000 30th Anniversary, and advised multiple candidate and statewide initiative campaigns.

Laura is dedicated to serving the greater good and embracing the possibilities of a better world. That genuine passion combined with her proven expertise to lead strategic communications planning, media relations, and public affairs advocacy in Seattle, the US, and abroad is at the core of Lockard Communications & Advocacy.

Laura holds a M.S. from Northeastern University in International Relations and a B.A. from the University of Washington Henry M. Jackson School, Ellison Center for Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies.

Also an active volunteer, Laura is a member of the Washington Global Health Alliance, Women in Global Health through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the American Association for the Advancement in Science. She is also National Democratic Institute for International Affairs alumni and serves annually as a volunteer for the ODIHR Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as an international election observer.

Visit Laura’s Muckrack portfolio.