Laura Barasa holds a PhD in Economics from Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Barasa is a Senior lecturer at the University of Nairobi, Department of Economics and Development Studies. Her research interests revolve around a range of topics in including innovation, agriculture, and socioeconomic challenges affecting the youth. She is a certified European Investment Bank-Global Development Network fellow in Applied Development Finance. She is affiliated to the African Economic Research Consortium and to Partnership for Economic Policy, and is also a member of the African Network for Internationalization of Education.

Some notable publications in her portfolio include one titled "Nonfarm Entrepreneurship, Crop Output, and Household Welfare in Tanzania: Investigating Transmission Channels," which was featured in the journal Agribusiness. You can access this publication via the following link: (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/agr.21788).