George Laufenberg
Cultural anthropologist. Consultant. Twenty-five years of navigating uncertainty — my own and other people's.
I'm George Laufenberg. I have a Ph.D. in anthropology from Princeton, an M.A. from Georgetown, and an undergraduate degree in poetry and anthropology from Johns Hopkins.
I've spent twenty-five years in education, politics, media, and nonprofits helping people expand their sense of what's possible when their current map no longer fits.
My path has been unconventional: radio & TV → wilderness guide → political speechwriter → academia → educational equity work → nonprofit executive. Each transition taught me something about navigating uncertainty when the old landmarks stop making sense.
My research at Princeton examined the double lives of America's licensed mental health professionals — the people we pay to help us make meaning out of the chaos of our lives — who were themselves reaching beyond everything they'd been trained to trust. The question wasn't whether they'd lost faith in their frameworks. It was how far they were willing to go in pursuit of lives that felt real — and where they finally stopped, drew a line, and said this I protect. That work opened a question I haven't been able to put down: What are we loyal to that we didn't choose — and what happens when we finally notice?