biography

Laura Pappano is an award-winning journalist and author who has written about education, social issues, politics, and gender (especially in the context of sports) for more than 20 years. She was the only girl in her Schaghticoke Middle School industrial arts class thanks to Title IX and the only girl on her Danbury News-Times carrier league baseball team in Northwestern Connecticut. Laura became attuned to the charged intersection of education, sports, and equity issues when she stole second base during one baseball game and was told by members of both teams (that’s a lot of 13-year-old boys) to “GO BAAAACK!!!!” She didn't -- and went on to score a run instead.

Laura regularly contributes to The New York Times Education Life section, The Harvard Education Letter, and CommonWealth, a political quarterly. A former education columnist for The Boston Globe, Laura’s work has also appeared in The Boston Globe Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Working Mother Magazine, Nick. Jr. Family Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, and The Huffington Post, among other print and online publications. She is co-author of Playing With The Boys: Why Separate is Not Equal in Sports (2008) and author of The Connection Gap (2001).  She is writer-in-residence at The Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College.

An active community volunteer, Laura is the immediate past chair of the West Suburban YMCA in Newton, Massachusetts.  She has helped elementary school children produce a real newspaper, taught journalism to inner-city youths through Citizen Schools, and coached youth sports teams.   A former goaltender for the Yale Field Hockey team, she now plays tennis, soccer, and touch football whenever she can.  She’s a mom of three who tries to navigate that narrow line between being a little hip and very embarrassing.