Lauren Walens is the strategic operations and communications director at PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and is a member of PolicyLab's leadership team. Ms. Walens is responsible for increasing PolicyLab’s visibility and influencing the center’s impact through strategic communications and operations. Collaborating with PolicyLab faculty and leadership, she ensures internal and external communications about PolicyLab’s work contribute to the overall mission of influencing public policy and practice. Ms. Walens also works to position PolicyLab researchers and projects in the media with many successful placements in prominent publications such as the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Hill, Vox, Forbes and Inside Health Policy. In her operations capacity, Ms. Walens is responsible for long-term strategic planning for the center, organizing and streamlining employee engagement efforts and executing the PolicyLab Weekly Speaker Series. 

Prior to joining PolicyLab, Ms. Walens worked as the senior manager of media and public relations at the Philadelphia-headquartered American Association for Cancer Research. She has also worked as the manager of media advocacy at the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN), the advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society based in Washington, D.C. Ms. Walens has an MA in health communication from Johns Hopkins University and a BA in public communication from American University.