Silk Road Artists

Laura Freid
CEO and Executive Director of the Silk Road Project, Inc.

Laura Freid has more than two decades of leadership experience in top-tier institutions of higher education and as a consultant to not-for-profit, public affairs, and media organizations nationally and internationally. Understanding how traditional concepts and new ideas travel across time and cultures has been a lifelong interest and is the focus of her published articles and interviews.

Prior to joining the Silk Road Project in 2004, Freid was executive vice president for public affairs and university relations at Brown University and served as a research associate for the Futures Project and visiting scholar for the Watson Institute for International Studies.

A magazine journalist and editor, Freid served as publisher of Harvard Magazine and as the first executive director of the Ivy League Magazine Network. Previously she was publisher and editor of Bostonia Magazine. A graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, she holds an MBA from Boston University, and an Ed.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.