I am an interdisciplinary scientist working at the intersection of functional microbiology and atmospheric chemistry. I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences. I currently have faculty affiliations with the BIO5 Institute, the Genetics Graduate Interdisciplinary Program (GIDP), the Global Change GIDP, and Department of Environmental Sciences. I was the Director of the Biosphere 2 Tropical Rain Forest from 2018-2021. I lead interdisciplinary research projects including a NSF CAREER Award project. The creativity and impact of my work was recognized with the 2022 Thomas Hilker Early Career Award for Excellence in Biogeosciences by the American Geophysical Union.
Career path. I came to Tucson in 2016 as an Associate Research Scientist with Scott Saleska (Ecology, University of Arizona). In 2014 and 2015 I was an Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences NSF Postdoctoral Fellow with Paula Welander (Geobiology, Stanford University) and Joe Berry (Global Change Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science). I earned my PhD in Climate Physics and Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with atmospheric chemist Ron Prinn and in collaboration with Steve Wofsy (Harvard) in 2013. I earned a BS in Chemistry from the California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), San Luis Obispo in 2005.
Laura can be reached at BlueSky | LinkedIn | laurameredith@arizona.edu.
