Although she spends most of her days in the mountains of Virginia, writer, mermaid, activist, and budding ukulele player Laura Lee Cascada thirsts for global adventure—from trekking through the Costa Rican rainforest to discovering the hidden beaches of her second home in Hawaii. A lifelong lover of nature and animals, she wholeheartedly eats her veggies, treads lightly, and promotes compassion.
She earned her graduate degree in environmental science and policy from Johns Hopkins University and has amassed over 15 years of experience fighting for a more just planet, from staving off efforts to overturn Virginia’s 30-year ban on uranium mining with the Sierra Club, to heading up PETA’s work to defeat over a dozen proposed “ag-gag” bills threatening vital eyewitness investigations of factory farms, and overseeing Animal Outlook’s campaigns to put vegan options on menus nationwide. Currently, Laura is the Senior Director of Campaigns of the Better Food Foundation, where she works to make plant-based eating the norm through the innovative food strategy DefaultVeg, which is being used by hundreds of institutions, impacting millions of meals. Laura’s advocacy work has been featured in national and international publications from Politico to the Huffington Post and Civil Eats, and her campaigns have achieved major victories like Subway launching a vegan meatball sub, Nestlé ditching its cruel ice cream brands and launching vegan Nesquik, and top poultry companies ending the use of barbaric “nose bones.”
As a writer, Laura has contributed to One Green Planet, Honey Colony, Counter Punch, The Dodo, Climate Conscious, and more. She created and runs a blog called The Every Animal Project, where she shares true animal tales that prompt readers to rethink their relationships with other species—with a print anthology now out, narrating her and her dog’s parallel journeys with anxiety: The Dog Who Wooed at the World. Her hard-hitting investigation of Hawaii’s only octopus farm for the EAP exposed a greenwashing and humanewashing scheme obfuscating the facility’s role in factory farming and led the state to issue a cease-and-desist letter. Laura also published her debut novel, Dellie’s Run, in June 2019, which follows one being’s remarkable journey to freedom through a big dream: baseball.
Laura advocates for imperiled wild hermit crabs through her Plight of the Hermies campaign, which has amassed over 60,000 supporters and led to the end of a terrifying local hermit crab race. She was a founding organizer of Richmond Friends of Animals, leading successful campaigns and demonstrations in central Virginia for 7 years. In 2015, she helped found and for four years ran the marketing, advertising, social media, and PR initiatives of the annual 5,000+ attendee Hampton Roads VegFest. She is a member of the LGBTQ+ community and has led campaigns for both queer rights and social justice, including as an organizer with Northern Shenandoah Valley Unites, a coalition for racial justice and healing. As part of a lifelong family of cavers, Laura sits on the board of the Appalachian Cave Conservancy.
When not writing or campaigning, Laura loves spending time with her furry/scaly/hooved family members (including Peppercorn the potbellied pig; Lip Gloss, Sprout, and Chia the cats; a group of millipedes; and a school of cichlid fish). She also enjoys meditating in nature and balancing rocks, playing the ukulele, and, of course, transforming into a mermaid whenever she encounters water. Laura is a PADI-certified mermaid and freediver and a member of the Metro Merfolk Pod, and she served as the 2022 Ms. Shenandoah Valley Mermaid for Monarch International, an inclusive, all-gender merfolk celebration.
Laura’s Vegan Mermaid Warrior Instagram and TikTok accounts, through which she has reached hundreds of thousands of people, are hubs for her video advocacy for sea life and social justice. She also uses her platforms to address misperceptions of chronic illnesses, including her own: Since 2020, Laura has been battling a mysterious and debilitating neuro-immune condition called ME/CFS, severely impacting her life and work. Every day is a journey in learning to balance her body’s needs with her own quest to bring about a more compassionate world, and she hopes to inspire and empower others along the way.
View her LinkedIn profile here.
