Laura Ruiz has dedicated her professional career to nonprofit management and academia.  Over the last several years she has lent her financial and accounting expertise to various Bay Area organizations including: La Pena Cultural Center, Pangaea Global Aids Foundation and the Unity Council.  In her prior life, she taught at San Francisco State University, UC Berkeley and Mills College, where she served a term as Chair of the Ethnic Studies Department.   Laura holds a B.A. from Harvard University and a Master’s degree from UC Berkeley.

Although born in Texas, Laura lived the first nine years of her life in Mexico, a place very dear to her heart.  In the U.S. , she spent her childhood as a migrant farmworker, working the fields with her family in Texas, Upstate New York, Minnesota and North Dakota. Her life’s trajectory from the farm fields to Harvard, was the subject of a CBS news mini-documentary titled, “From Harvest to Harvard.”An avid reader, traveler and a lover of the arts, Laura currently serves on the Advisory Board of the American Trust for the British Library.  Her passion for Scandinavian noir has led to recent visits to Denmark and Norway. Laura’s love of learning has never stopped and she continues to study art history.