Lara Wade

Lara Wade is AASA's Director of Communications and brings more than 20 years of experience in PR/media relations with non-profit organizations and educational institutions.

She was at her alma mater, the University of South Florida, for almost 15 years and oversaw communications as the Director of Media Relations and Public Affairs. She managed the comms team and secured publicity for the top-tier research, AAU university. Lara led crisis planning, strategy and response, and served as the designated spokesperson and chief public information officer.

At USF, Lara assisted socioeconomically disadvantaged families recover the remains of their loved ones, young children abused, killed, and buried in unmarked graves at the Dozier School for Boys in the Florida panhandle. She worked with forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle, Ph.D., and spent years petitioning state officials and politicians to achieve restorative justice. She developed a worldwide media campaign, partnering with CNN, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and others to allow Kimmerle to use ground penetrating radar on the school's property, locate the dozens of unmarked graves, recover their remains, and return them to their families for a proper burial. Kimmerle was allowed to complete her work and in 2024 Florida passed a $20 million reparations bill for the boys who were abused. Lara was featured in Kimmerle's book, We Carry Their Bones, and a fictionalized account that chronicled events at Dozier was detailed in Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead's book, The Nickel Boys, which was turned into 2025 Golden Globe nominated movie.

Most recently, Lara was the Vice President of Media Relations at CLYDE where she managed the media relations practice for the DC firm and worked with various clients including Americans United for Separation of Church & State, conducting media outreach for their Supreme Court case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. She was also the Director of Strategic Communications and Media Relations at Northern Virginia Community College; and worked for Healthy Start, a state program created to improve birth outcomes for Florida families; LifePath Hospice; and an AIDS service organization.