Lauren Smith is the associate director of research operations for the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy. She has extensive experience implementing public health policy research studies using a variety of research methods. Lauren is experienced in research processes from the proposal stage all the way to dissemination of findings. She also conducts qualitative research components of mixed-methods studies and has co-authored a number of scientific publications resulting from this work. She is currently coordinating two NIH R01 studies about pregnancy and disability; one examining pregnancy outcomes and experiences of deaf and hard-of-hearing women and one on the intersections of race, ethnicity, and disability in Black women and Latinas with physical disabilities. Lauren received her MPH from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and prior to joining the Lurie Institute in 2015, she worked at UMass Medical School in the Center for Health Policy Research, Disability, Health and Employment Policy Unit.