Our team
Laura Schwab-Reese (she/her) is a public health researcher focused on a central question: How do we build child-serving systems that genuinely protect young people while centering their voices, experiences, and needs? Her work examines how adolescents use technology to navigate gaps in support related to violence and maltreatment, and how digital environments shape help-seeking, disclosure, and trust. Drawing on rigorous quantitative methods alongside approaches that prioritize children’s voices, she studies how emerging technologies can expand access to evidence-based information and support while establishing the ethical guardrails necessary to prevent exploitation, misinformation, and harm. In her advisory role with Social Resonance Lab, she brings a systems-oriented perspective to conversations about ethical storytelling and social connection, with particular attention to how environments shape trust, responsibility, and access to support.
She applies this practical, human-centered lens across her scholarship and leadership, including service as an editorial board member of the American Journal of Public Health, Associate Editor of the Journal of Family Violence, and former President of the Society for the Advancement of Violence and Injury Research. She earned her PhD in Community and Behavioral Health and MA in Mental Health Counseling from the University of Iowa and completed training in child maltreatment research at the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. She is an Associate Professor of Public Health at Purdue University and a recipient of a K01 award from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development focused on advanced data science, communication, and ethics.
