Chief of Staff, Executive Vice Provost and Assistant Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives
Laura Howes serves as Chief of Staff to the Executive Vice Provost and oversees and supports strategic initiatives within the Office of the Provost including the Academic Project Management Core and the 2030 Teaching Excellence & Innovation Initiative.
Laura joined Duke in 2014, working in the Office of Interdisciplinary Programs, where she led interdisciplinary initiatives and served as Director of Bass Connections from 2017 to 2025. Prior to Duke, she was Director of Finance and Development at the James B. Hunt Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy. Earlier in her career, Laura served as a Senior Program Manager at the Partnership for Public Service, where she designed and managed leadership development and cultural change initiatives for federal agencies.
Laura has a B.A. in public policy analysis and political science from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and an M.B.A. from the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.