Maria Laughlin was born in Portland, Oregon, and graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1993.  An adult convert to the Catholic Church, she was baptized at St. James Cathedral in 1997.  She has been on staff at St. James since 1998, and became Director of Stewardship and Development in 2006.  In addition to coordinating the Cathedral's various fundraising activities, she is also the Cathedral's webmaster and creates the parish journal In Your Midst.

In addition, she is an artist whose drawings and photographs have been featured in a variety of publications both locally and nationally.