Laurel represents the Fed in regular speeches about the business environment, the future of the American economy, and risks to the economic outlook. Her work has been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and MarketWatch, among others, and featured on National Public Radio. She also coauthored The Handbook of Oil Politics, published by Routledge. Prior to assuming her current position, Laurel served as director of the Nashville Branch’s Regional Economic Information Network and held a number of positions with the Atlanta office of the Federal Reserve, including as a director overseeing inflation and energy market analysis for the Research Department. She joined the Bank in 2005 as an intern specializing in international economics.
Laurel is deeply engaged in her community, including serving on the boards of the United Way of Greater Nashville, Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee, the Economics and Finance Department at Tennessee State University, and TennGreen Land Conservancy. She is also chair of the Atlanta Fed’s Diversity Advisory Council. Laurel was named a 2020 Woman of Influence by the Nashville Business Journal and a 2021 Most Powerful Woman by Nfocus Magazine; she is a member of the Leadership Nashville class of 2022, is a graduate of Leadership Middle Tennessee, and was elected as a Tennessee representative to the International Women’s Forum. She earned an MBA with honors from Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management and a bachelor’s degree in economics, summa cum laude, from Agnes Scott College.