Lauren Pond is a versatile communications professional and creative producer with expertise in photography and multimedia, analytical writing, digital scholarship, and arts administration. Guiding all of her work is an enthusiasm for storytelling and advancing public understanding of complex topics.
Lauren excels at engaging audiences with research in both the sciences and humanities. She currently serves as a Marketing and Communications Associate within The Ohio State University’s Department of Psychology, where she publicizes the work of the Collaborative on the Science of Polarization and Misinformation (C-SPAM), an interdisciplinary initiative examining the psychological factors behind the spread of false and misleading information and its divisive impact. Previously, she worked as Digital Media and Communications Manager for the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and as Multimedia Producer for the American Religious Sounds Project at Ohio State. Additionally, from 2015 to 2022, Lauren served as Manager of Fresh A.I.R. Gallery, where she directed art exhibitions that helped shift prevailing narratives around mental illness and substance use disorders.
As a freelancer, Lauren frequently tells stories about religious cultures and communities, as well as the Anthropocene and environmental issues. In 2017, she published her first monograph, Test of Faith: Signs, Serpents, Salvation, with the support of the Duke Center for Documentary Studies/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography, and in 2019, she was the inaugural Artist in Residence for Saint Louis University’s Lived Religion in the Digital Age initiative. Lauren’s work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal and has been recognized by the Magnum/Inge Morath Foundations, the Lucie Foundation, FotoVisura, PDN, College Photographer of the Year, and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, among others. She has spoken about her photography at universities and conferences across the country and exhibited both nationally and internationally.
Lauren received dual Bachelor’s degrees in journalism and art from Northwestern University and a Master’s degree in photography from Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication.