Laura Ward Branca is an African-Armenian American cookbook author and civil rights activist. She is on the board of the Moosewood vegetarian restaurant in Ithaca, NY, named by Bon Appetit magazine as ” one of the thirteen most influential restaurants of the 20th Century”, and she works with the Dorothy Cotton Institute, an institute offering popular education and training to inspire and support people who want to foster and protect human rights and to advance civic participation for social transformation. Founder Dorothy Cotton worked with Dr. Martin Luther King.