Laura is a bilingual (Spanish) Licensed Educational Psychologist in Massachusetts specializing in learning disabilities, developmental delays, and reading disorders. Group and individual services provided for the purposes of promoting mental health and facilitating learning. In addition to workshops and presentations, Laura offers clinical evaluations, consultations, and educational advocacy. She has been a School Psychologist in Lynn for approximately 15 years and spent one year in the Bronx, NY as an Doctoral intern at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center in the Bronx, NY.
Laura’s presentations on the impact of trauma and poverty on learning are timely, engaging and highly educational. They focus on social emotional learning, its importance and what neuroscience research tells about important elements of children’s learning and how to improve it.
A Tufts University graduate and HEOP scholar, Laura Luna has over 17 years of experience working in the educational field. As an AmeriCorps Volunteer and later as School Psychologist, Laura has spent the majority of her career working with inner city youth.
Background
Laura is a 2005 graduate of Tufts University School Psychology program. She has been practicing School Psychology for almost two decades and speaking at conferences and workshops since graduation. Before that, however, the only way Hamilton College would accept her as a student was if she successfully completed the Higher Educational Opportunity Program (HEOP). The program was an initiative designed specifically for inner city youth who showed promise, but their acceptance was conditional. HEOP included curfews, strict time management policies, and courses on writing, math, study skills and organization. Laura’s experience as an Advanced Placement student at Wingate High School in Brooklyn had only moderately prepared her for a rigorous college trajectory.
Growing up in Brooklyn, NY provided Laura with many experiential learning opportunities. Namely, how to identify dime bags and the local drug dealer. Caught in multiple shootouts—marginally missing becoming a statistic—Laura never really considered that life was any different anywhere else. After all, her parents had brought her and her brother to the United States for an better life. Free breakfast and lunch being the only possible meal was a reality that Laura never questioned.
Laura credits her mother, mentors and teachers with supporting her in her road to literacy, a factor that opened her eyes to what was possible, even while sitting on the stoop of a drug infested neighborhood.
At present, Laura uses her knowledge of neuropsychology and neuroscience research to effectively translate findings to influence policy makers and motivate lay people. However, her own personal experiences with poverty and immigration powerfully underscore her message that the brain is malleable and that we are all in a position to help children affected by poverty and trauma, especially as it relates to learning.