Laura Harris, an enrolled citizen of the Comanche Nation, is the executive director of Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO) where she heads up an international Indigenous values-based leadership development program and Indigenous leaders network. Before joining AIO, Harris was on the original fund-raising staff for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Prior to that, she worked in the Washington, D.C. office of U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman (NM). Harris served on the senior staff of the U.S. presidential campaigns of Gov. Howard Dean (2004) and Gov. Bill Richardson (2008). In 1997, President Bill Clinton appointed Harris senior advisor to the President’s Initiative on Race. Harris is a trained and experienced fundraiser and consensus-building facilitator. She resides in Albuquerque, NM where she spends time with her 1-year old granddaughter, Maddie May Goodhope, who calls her Huutsi (Comanche for paternal grandmother).
