Lauren Lambie-Hanson's longtime interest in residential mortgages, credit access, and community development first took root in college during an internship with a local planning department. Later, her doctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology focused on foreclosures in Boston, drilling into data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston to determine who were most affected: homeowners or property investors. Her analysis uncovered insights into the foreclosure crisis, generating data on residential mortgages and their performance, mortgage accessibility to consumers, and accuracy of appraisals. Lauren saw the importance of data analysis in providing information to help in policy decisions and institutional responses to the crisis. As a subject matter expert in mortgage risk, foreclosures, and real estate economics, Lauren was elected to the board of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association and appointed as chair of its Women in Real Estate Network.

Lauren worked at the Boston Fed before joining the Philadelphia Fed in 2013. She has a Ph.D. in urban and regional studies from MIT and a master's degree in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley.