Laura is a technology leader focused on helping companies bridge the Artificial Intelligence divide through practical application at Microsoft. As the former Chief Data Scientist, Laura became a global leader and incubator for AI innovation and Sustainability strategy. In 2020, her podcast ‘Annielytics’ went live and found tremendous success focusing on Women in Tech and Girls in STEM, two near and dear areas to her heart and spawned a 2nd podcast focused on women in the data science and AI tech arena called “An Eye 4 AI”. Since 2020, Medium has recognized Laura as one of the top influencers working in Data Science today, where she continues to drive innovation and curiosity in her thought leadership. In 2024, she was named one of the top 100 women working in AI today recognized for her contributions to diversity and inclusion in AI. Before joining Microsoft, Laura worked for Apple on Siri Gen 1 utilizing NLP to innovate and bring early AI mobile assistants to life, before leading a team at Expedia, where her work in flight pricing optimization resulted in tremendous opportunity growth and new GTM partnerships. Laura is also an avid fantasy football fan. Her ensemble algorithmic approach ( a combo of deep neural nets and greedy reinforcement learning bandits ) have won her the league title several years in a row, shutting down those who said statistics could never trump the tribal knowledge gained through years of watching football and playing fantasy sports. Outside of work, Laura volunteers with several organizations like DigiGirlz, GirlsWhoCode and SheSTEM4Students, which all center on introducing technology to female students in our public school system. She is also a classically trained pianist and former Florida-state champion, where she continues to play Rachmaninoff and Debussy for her smaller family-based human and furry audience. In her past life, Laura was an EDM DJ in South Beach using both vinyl spun turntables and modern mixing boards to create her unique sound. In fact, many people, including Laura, believe that mathematics and music theory are very closely related. She especially loves the formulaic progressions and wonderful tonality achieved when composing her own musical scores. Laura also attributes her musicality to her neurodiversity. In fact, her dysgraphia (and dyslexia), she now embraces wholeheartedly. What was once called a disability is something she views as a gift, and she attributes her out of the box thinking to the tools and processes she was trained to utilize as a child, believing they ultimately helped to shape her curiosity for all things into the thought leader and peer rated top female influencer in AI and Data Science. Lastly, she is a friend to humans and animals alike.