Laura joins the PBA Orlando counseling faculty after serving as an adjunct for over a year. She is a licensed mental health counselor in the State of Florida, is a registered play therapist through the Association for Play Therapy, and has additional coursework, training, and experience in school-based counseling. She also holds the board certified credentials of national certified counselor and certified clinical mental health counselor. Laura is a compassionate, bilingual counselor with a success record in helping individuals and families. She is most passionate about working with children and engaging their caregivers, particularly those that identify in the Latino/Latina population. Laura has one book chapter and five peer-reviewed publications in print, and has presented over twenty papers/posters at national, regional, state, and local conferences, including presenting as an invited keynote speaker at the 4th Annual Undergrad Psychology Conference at the University of Central Florida. She is an active member of the American Counseling Association (ACA), the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES), the Association for Child and Adolescent Counseling (ACAC), the Association for Multicultural Counseling & Development (AMCD), the Southern Association for Counselor Education and Supervision, and the Florida Counseling Association. She was selected as a 2016 SACES Emerging Leader, served as the Florida Association of Multicultural Counseling & Development’s (FAMCD) minority concerns chairperson for Latino/Latina concerns and has been nominated for AMCD Vice President of Latino/a Concerns. It is her passion to train counselors to work with children in a variety of settings, as well as to develop bilingual counseling and play therapy competencies in Spanish that are culturally responsive and developmentally appropriate, and to promote education and research related to these areas.