Dr. Laura Premack has been an academic, teacher, cyclist, rower, waitress, outdoor guide, hutmaster, and Zen student. She has climbed mountains, washed dishes, sold vegetables, baked bread, played fiddle, driven a box truck, cleared trails, studied horticulture, learned languages, and taught herself to weave. Laura holds a PhD and MA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an EdM from Harvard University, and a BA from Wesleyan University.
Despite realising early on that, as an academic, she was a square peg in a round hole, Laura persisted and flourished in academia. She won prestigious fellowships, researched on four continents, published widely, presented internationally, and held postdoctoral and tenure-track appointments in the US and UK. During this time, she had two children and became a working mother.
In autumn 2019, deciding it was time to realign her life with her values, Laura resigned her position as a permanent lecturer in a leading department at Lancaster University. She now divides her time between coaching, facilitating, writing and weaving.
All of these endeavours are grounded in her strong yoga and meditation practice. Laura is a certified mindfulness meditation teacher (MMTCP) and has practiced yoga since 1995 and Buddhist meditation (Zen and vipassana) since 2005. She has spent time at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, Insight Meditation Society, Chapel Hill Zen Center, Southern Dharma, and Gaia House in study and silent retreat.
Laura’s creative practices also inform her coaching work. A writer represented by Ludo Cinelli of the Eve White Literary Agency in London, she is working on a book about empire, plants and landscape to be published by Eliot & Thompson in 2026. Laura is also an emerging textile artist, working mainly with heritage-breed British wool and linen. Her handweaving has been supported by Arts Council England and exhibited locally.
Laura lives with her family in the northwest corner of England, where she gardens, watches the rain, and tries not to miss her native New England too much.