Laura Hedli covers the Upper East Side.

Not a typical journalism student, Laura intended to study medicine after attending a medical conference in high school, and later earned a degree in neuroscience from Barnard College. Originally from Clinton, N.J., Laura was raised by science-minded parents—a civil engineer and a medical writer. Laura’s dream, though, is to become a theater critic. She served as the theater editor for the Columbia Daily Spectator in 2008 and continues to flex her theater critic muscle: a feature article she wrote about A Boy And His Soul, an off-Broadway play, ran on the Arts cover page of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Laura works at Cornell Medical College and averages seeing one play a week. She lives in Morningside Heights. Check out her blog at www.stagesynapses.blogspot.com.