Dr. Laura Blankenship is a long-time independent school educator and administrator. She is the former Founding Head of School at San Francisco Girls’ School. She began her career working at the intersection of technology and the humanities while earning her Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition from the University of Arkansas where her dissertation explored the use of web technologies to improve writing instruction. For the following twenty years, Dr. Blankenship dedicated her unique set of skills to girls’ and women’s education. She spent seven years at Bryn Mawr College working as an Instructional Technologist where she ran a summer program for young women to learn web development and other technical skills while building projects for the school.
After leaving Bryn Mawr College, Laura took a position at The Baldwin School, a PreK-12 all-girls school in Bryn Mawr, to establish the Computer Science program. She spent ten years at Baldwin, serving as the Assistant Head of School in the last two years and the prior three years as Dean of Academic Affairs. In both roles, she oversaw the academic programming, faculty evaluation and hiring, and the accreditation process. As Assistant Head, she took on Strategic Planning and leadership hiring as part of her portfolio. Laura also served as the Computer Science Department Chair, establishing the first Computer Science program at an independent school in the Philadelphia area. Laura served for two years as a board member of the Computer Science Teachers’ Association and another year on the CSTA Curriculum Committee. She was the recipient of the National Conference of Women in Technology Educator award.
Laura lives in Tennessee with her husband. She is serving on the board at the Julia Morgan School for Girls and works as an educational consultant.