SUDC UK TEAM

Laura is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and co-principal investigator of the SUDC Registry and Research Collaborative. Laura was integral to the first definition and awareness of sudden unexplained death in children, and her research efforts span >2 decades to better understand SUDC and febrile seizures related deaths.

In 1997, her first child, Maria, succumbed to Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood (SUDC) at the age of 15 months. Through the death investigation of Maria, Laura was convinced that changes in the system could and should be achieved. She advocated for new child death investigation legislation in her home U.S. state of New Jersey that became law in 2000, a subsequent New Jersey law regarding research in 2006, co-founded the SUDC Foundation and supported federal legislation that became law in 2014; “The Sudden Unexpected Death Data Enhancement and Awareness Act”. Laura has co-authored more than 30 scientific publications on SUDC, and is co-editor of Unexplained Pediatric Deaths: Investigations, Certification and Family Needs.

Laura is a member of the National Association of Medical Examiners and has volunteered on several U.S. federal working groups to improve U.S. forensic science standards and medicolegal death investigations including the Scientific Working Group On Medicolegal Death Investigation (SWGMDI), the Organization for Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) subcommittee for medicolegal death investigation, National Commission on Forensic Science and the Working Group on Data Exchange in Medicolegal Death Investigation. Laura is a member of ISPID and Co-Chair of ISPID’s working group on SUDC.