Dr. Lauren McDaniel earned her bachelor’s degree at Georgetown University and her medical degree at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She completed her pediatrics residency and chief residency at Johns Hopkins Children's Center.  Dr. McDaniel’s research expertise is within quality improvement and her primary scholarly focus is in improving the sleep of hospitalized patients by reducing unnecessary overnight interventions.

While she was a faculty member at Johns Hopkins, she completed the Patient Safety and Quality Leadership Academy and Lean Six Sigma training through the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. She has additionally completed the Quality Improvement Scholars training program at Seattle Children’s Hospital. Her scholarly work to date has focused on understanding the contributing factors to sleep disruptions, which has allowed for more targeted quality improvement interventions. Dr. McDaniel successfully led a quality improvement initiative including patients admitted to hospital medicine services at Seattle Children’s Hospital which decreased overnight blood pressure measurements by 26% without an associated increase in patient safety events. She is presently funded through an Academic Enrichment Fund grant to develop a prediction model to better identify hospitalized pediatric patients who can safely forego nighttime vital signs.