Laurence creates media, experiences, and pedagogy that bring people together and illuminate the messy intersection of science, technology, and public policy.

Before coming to Lux, Laurence spent a year as an inaugural Moynihan Public Scholar at the City College of New York, where he taught and conducted research and wrote a monthly column for the literary and humor publication McSweeney’s as its 2022 Grand Prize Columnist Winner. He remains a resident fellow at the Moynihan Center.

Laurence previously served as the Director of Speechwriting for Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations and a member of President Biden's cabinet. As part of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations Executive Office, Laurence advised the Ambassador on messaging and policy and oversaw everything in her voice, including over 650 speeches.

Throughout his tenure at the State Department, Laurence traveled with the Ambassador across the country and around the world. He met with refugees from Afghanistan, protestors from Iran, defectors from North Korea, dissidents from Nicaragua, and assault survivors from South Sudan. He also advised her in official meetings with policy and political leaders ranging from the Administrator of NASA to the President of Costa Rica to the Foreign Minister of Ukraine.

Laurence served in the writers room for the 2024 Democratic National Convention and in the 2020 Biden-Harris campaign’s paid media writers room. He cut his teeth at West Wing Writers, a speechwriting and strategy firm, where he counselled CEOs, celebrities, foundation heads, and officials at all levels of government on strategic messaging and thought leadership, writing products as short as a tweet and as long as a book. His remarks and ideas were showcased in venues like the White House and the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and his ghostwriting was featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker, among many other publications.

Laurence has delivered lectures at Cornell, Georgetown, Amherst, and the City College of New York, and is a NextGen member of Foreign Policy for America. He is working on a book on why public apologies fail and a novel about buried treasure. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Amherst College and lives in Brooklyn.  

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