Laura Donnelly

Laura Donnelly has been a journalist, a book publicist for Maya Angelou, former President Jimmy Carter and even "Jurassic Park" creator Michael Crichton, a documentary filmmaker - even a p.a. For the Geraldo Rivera show. She majored in English and minored in Computer Science in 1993 at Fairleigh Dickinson University in NJ. There, she learned (ahem, preparing to date herself) Basic, Fortran and C, cutting edge then. 23 years later, she is back in tech education introducing Latina and other girls of color to Javascript, CSS, HTML, robotics and more in addition to the fun of digital media production. While getting her masters at the University of Texas Austin, Laura co-founded the first magazine made for and by young Latinas and a non-profit that empowers girls to innovate through media and technology, Currently Latinitas' CEO, Laura leads operations, resource development program management and magazine publishing for the organization's Austin, TX hub and chapter office in El Paso. Donnelly has been recognized for her role in empowering young Latinas as a 2010 winner of Austin’s Under 40 awards, the YWCA of Austin Woman of the Year, “Leader of Promise” and nationally as Hispanicize’s Positive Impact Award winner in 2015. She was also 1 of 46 selected to the Mayor’s special task force to End Systemic and Institutional Racism this year, a 2013 Leadership Austin Essentials graduate, Austin Innotech's Woman of the Year and a finalist for Austin Business Journals Profiles in Power award in 2017. She is the mother of 8 year old "Latinito" Lucas Gonzalez and is engaged to Jon Salinas, an architect.

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