Laura Merryfield
ESHIP Long Beach Community Liaison
Laura works in Long Beach, California to grow the local entrepreneurial ecosystem and to build best practices across all ESHIP communities. Most recently, they completed a master’s degree in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, with research and fieldwork spanning equity in disaster response, cross-sectoral partnership effectiveness, and civic innovation.
Laura has deep roots in Long Beach, having grown up in the city and its schools and spent years in the nonprofit sector. They worked on community organizing campaigns around health equity, education justice, and immigrant rights with both Building Healthy Communities: Long Beach (now Long Beach Forward) and the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition.
Laura is especially proud of their work with the community-based Long Beach Language Access Coalition to advocate for and partner in the implementation of the city’s Language Access Policy, allowing Long Beach residents and community members from all backgrounds to have greater voice in local governance. Laura holds a BA in development studies from the University of California, Berkeley.