Lauren Morando Rhim is a senior advisor to the Center for Learner Equity, a nonprofit she co-founded in 2013 that is devoted to ensuring students with disabilities can access and thrive in traditional and charter public schools. As the founding Executive Director for the Center's first 12 years, Lauren led the organization's growth--raising more than $24 million--and strategic vision. She also oversaw research, advocacy, capacity-building, and coalition development. A researcher at heart, she has published extensively about school reform. She consults frequently with federal, state, and local advocates, policy leaders, and practitioners regarding pressing issues influencing the education of students with disabilities.

Lauren previously worked as a senior consultant for Public Impact and was an education policy researcher at the University of Maryland. She started her career in education at Peace Corps Headquarters, where she helped grow the Paul D. Coverdell Fellows Program. In 1994, she was part of a small team of Peace Corps staff detailed to the newly created Corporation for National and Community Service to launch the original Americorps Leaders program.

Morando Rhim is committed to community service and has served on her local elected school board in Vermont and the board of an alternative charter high school in New Hampshire. She is a founding board member of the Special Education Leader Fellowship in New Orleans and serves on the board of The Family Place in Norwich, Vermont. She holds a BA from the University of Vermont, an MA from The George Washington University, and a PhD in education policy from the University of Maryland, College Park. After nearly 20 years in Washington, D.C., Lauren returned to Vermont in 2008 where she lives with her ridiculous dog Tucker and very occasionally, her two adult children.