Laura McKieran is Executive Director of CI:Now and an Associate Professsor of Management, Policy, and Community Health at the UTHealth School of Public Health in San Antonio. She earned her Doctor of Public Health degree in 1998 from the UTHSCH-Houston School of Public Health, focusing on community involvement in health care planning and service systems. In 1998 she joined the United Way of America in Alexandria, Virginia, working in the area of program- and community-level outcome measurement. She later moved to the New York Academy of Medicine, where she provided technical assistance to communities working to broaden community participation in health-related decisionmaking. Between 2001 and 2008 she held various positions in planning, evaluation, health informatics, and grants management at CentroMed, a large Federally Qualified Health Center in San Antonio. She came to CI:Now after launching an independent consulting practice to assist nonprofits and health care organizations with community assessment, planning and evaluation, systems change, and development.  In addition to overall direction, she brings particular expertise in health, performance improvement, and outcome-focused planning and measurement. She tries to balance out her intense frustration with human and animal suffering by laughing just as often as possible.