Dr. Laurie Lax
Woman of AchievementForest Hills Jewish Center
Laurie was born in upstate New York to two academic parents. Her father was a professor of physics, and her mother was in graduate school and ultimately received her doctorate in Spanish literature. She moved to New Jersey at the age of two with two siblings (a third was yet to be born) and lived most of her childhood in three different New Jersey towns. She spent one year in Oxford, England, when her father was on sabbatical. The family belonged to a Conservative synagogue in New Jersey and was very active there. Laurie attended public school and Hebrew school through high school. She was involved in both Young Judea and USY and held a leadership position on the Girl Scouts’ regional board.
Laurie majored in psychology at the University of Rochester, where she graduated cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Laurie taught swimming and sailing at a summer camp in the Adirondacks and later worked for two summers at a camp for children on the Autism Spectrum. She went on to achieve a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Florida and received post-doctoral training in pediatric and adult neuropsychology in Boston. After living and working for several years in the Boston area, Laurie relocated to New York to pursue a faculty position at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics in pediatric neuropsychology. She later spent many years at SUNY Downstate Medical Center as an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Neurology and continued clinical work and teaching in neuropsychology. Laurie is now in private practice on Long Island that is affiliated with Northwell.
Laurie is currently on the presidium of the Forest Hills Jewish Center Sisterhood as well as on the Board of Trustees of the Forest Hills Jewish Center. She is married to Eric Kober, an economist and city planner, who worked for the Department of City Planning in New York City and works as a consultant now. Her daughter, Hannah, has a doctorate in educational linguistics and works as a director at a Jewish non-profit agency. Her son-in-law, Josh, is an ordained Modern Orthodox rabbi who is employed in Jewish communal work. Laurie’s mother is her role model as a volunteer in the Jewish community. Her mother served as the first woman president of a Conservative synagogue and ultimately was a national board member of USCJ, Mercaz, and Solomon Schechter. Laurie will be the incoming Health Education Chair on the BQLI Board of Directors.