Member, AMPAC Board of Directors
Dr. Lawrence is a board-certified ophthalmologist currently serving as the Medical Director for Governmental Affairs for the Minnesota Academy of Eye Physicians and Surgeons and a Board Director of MEDPAC, the Minnesota Medical Association’s political action committee.
She received her BA from Mt. Holyoke College and her MD from Jefferson Medical College. Following an internship in pediatrics at the University of Colorado, she completed her ophthalmology residency at Wills Eye Hospital. After residency, Dr. Lawrence spent a year doing glaucoma subspecialty training and a year in private practice in the Boston area before joining the full-time faculty at Harvard Medical School, where she was honored with the Residents Teacher of the Year Award and the Dean's Commendation for excellence in teaching.
In 1996, Dr. Lawrence completed a Clinical Epidemiology Fellowship at Yale University School of Medicine as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. She held teaching positions at both the Yale Medical School and the Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital, an affiliate of Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 1998, she was awarded an MPH from Yale School of Public Health.
From 1997 to 2010, Dr. Lawrence was a Professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School. At the affiliated Minneapolis Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center, she spearheaded an innovative telemedicine program for rural Veterans with diabetes.
In 2010, Dr. Lawrence was appointed Deputy Executive Director of the Department of Defense/Veterans Affairs Vision Center of Excellence in Washington, DC, responsible for the global coordination of care for Service members with eye and vision injuries from Iraq and Afghanistan. While in Washington, she was a member of the Trauma Service at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
From 2019-2020, Dr. Lawrence served as President of the Minnesota Academy of Eye Physicians and Surgeons through the frightening first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic and the civil unrest in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder. She and her husband, James A. Lawrence, have two grown children and currently reside in Minnesota where she has been a strong advocate for legislation and executive policies that foster high quality care for patients and for the physicians who care for them.