School Year Abroad (SYA) is proud to announce Lauren Burke CN’01 as a recipient of the inaugural Emerging Leader Award. This prestigious honor recognizes Lauren’s visionary leadership, passion for education and dedication to fostering cultural awareness and global understanding — core values of SYA. Lauren attended SYA as a junior from Amherst Regional High School in Massachusetts.

 

Lauren describes herself as a “creator, igniter, and fighter” and has been dreaming up solutions to problems since she was five. When a childhood crush couldn’t attend Saturday playdates, she signed up for Mandarin classes so she could go with him.

When the elementary school where she later volunteered as a translator for newly immigrated students did away with Transitional Bilingual education, she went to law school to learn how to advocate for children’s rights.

When the Department of Health Services wrongfully targeted a client, she filed a federal injunction, winning the case before even being admitted to practice law.

Lauren became a law professor at age 27 and has co-founded three social initiatives (Atlas DIY, Immigration Nation, and Camp Equity), creating dozens of jobs, raising millions of dollars, and impacting countless lives across the U.S.

She has worked in residence at half a dozen institutions, providing mentorship and capacity building services to social impact founders, and most recently acted as Entrepreneur in Residence at Smith College. She is the co-author of My Social Justice Dictionary: 150+ Words for Young Changemakers, and her work has been featured in the New York Times, on NPR’s All Things Considered, and in four documentary pieces. Today, alongside many smaller initiatives, Lauren is focused on building Notehouse, a case management platform for human helpers, through which she aims to not only support frontline workers but explore different ways in which for profit and nonprofit businesses can work together to build a more equitable world.

She has received recognition from Forbes 30 Under 30, the Skadden and Echoing Green Fellowships, New Leaders’ Council, Connecticut College and NYU School of Law. She was a Global Thinker Speaker at SYA’s 50th Anniversary Celebration. Lauren lives in the woods of Western Massachusetts with her partner, two kids, a dog and a cat, and they spend a lot of time dancing in the kitchen. She dreams of a world where everyone has equitable access to being both the recipients and the beneficiaries of the greater good.

Lauren’s influence extends beyond her immediate work, having served as an advisor and mentor to countless others, including those in the arts, such as SYA classmate Ethan Heard CN’01 (Associate Artistic Director, Signature Theatre, Co-Founder of Heartbeat Opera). Her ability to inspire others to work harder and smarter has made her a valued leader in the communities she serves.

This award recognizes Lauren for her ongoing commitment to making the world a better place through innovation, education and advocacy. SYA is thrilled to honor her as a beacon of leadership and a role model for future generations.