Laura Norén is a doctoral candidate in sociology at New York University and a Fellow at the Social Science Research Council's Center on Law and Public Policy. Her dissertation - Collaboration in Design - interrogates the relationship between the tools designers use and their collaborative practices across field sites as different as chamber music rehearsals, professional kitchens, and architectural offices. With Harvey Molotch she has co-edited Toilet: The Public Restroom and the Politics of Sharing that examines the space where plumbing infrastructure meets social taboos about gender, hygiene, sexuality, class, and citizenship. She is currently working on a book project with support from Microsoft Research that explores why and how food bloggers transform the physical process of making and eating food into a visual and textual practice. For the past three years she has been writing the blog Graphic Sociology which offers a critical analysis of information graphics for social science data.

Norén's interest in design combines scholarship with practical skills. Through her work at the Center on Law and Public Finance her graphic design work has helped distill fiscal and policy decisions around infrastructure banks into graphics that facilitate discussions among key stakeholders. She works closely with Michael Likosky on public private partnership infrastructure research.

Additionally, she co-founded 7L Studio with fellow MIT alumnus Simon Lawrence. 7L Studio has completed websites for academic institutions at Harvard and NYU (including the IPK website) and is currently developing software applications for social science research.