Lauren in the news

Breaking News at the End of the Earth | Ben Mack, Esquire

I spent a year in Antarctica. Here’s what I learned living through nine months of darkness and -112F temperatures | Holly Baxter, The Independent

Swirl, sniff, mute, sip: Inside a virtual whiskey tasting | Ian Shapira, The Washington Post

Professional profile

I’m currently the Scientific Communications Editor at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. I write and edit news stories, take photos, produce videos, and design graphics to illustrate the groundbreaking science conducted by CIRES researchers.

My previous role was editor of The Antarctic Sun, the United States Antarctic Program’s online newspaper. I wrote and edited stories about the amazing research that takes place at the bottom of the world as well as the logistics and operations that make the science happen. I also managed USAP’s photo library and helped with general communications activities for the program.

Before joining USAP, I was a program manager in the media relations department at the American Geophysical Union, the world’s largest organization of Earth and space scientists. I shared new Earth and space science research findings with journalists and the public through press releases, blogs, news stories and video projects. I also helped found and produce AGU’s award-winning podcast Third Pod from the Sun, which tells the stories of the people and methods behind the science.

I earned my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biomedical engineering from Tulane University and then worked for more than five years at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where I studied the immune response to infectious diseases. I also helped establish a new lab devoted to studying the role of microbes and inflammation in cancer.

I am a past president and board member of the D.C. Science Writers Association.

I write to share with others what I find beautiful about the world. My goal is to inspire in others a sense of awe of our vast universe, from the tiniest amoeba to the grandest galaxy.

Personal profile

I love laughing, and I wish it made me float on the ceiling like Uncle Albert in Mary Poppins. I could listen to Maxwell’s “Silently” every day for the rest of my life and never get sick of it. If I were on death row, I would want my last meal to be 1,000 mozzarella sticks. I think the most beautiful thing ever written that is not a poem is Joyas Voladoras by Brian Doyle. I think the most beautiful thing ever written that is a poem is I carry your heart with me by E.E. Cummings. I feel incredibly vulnerable when I leave the house without a hair tie on my wrist or chapstick in my bag. I believe that no day is so bad that it can’t be fixed by a nap. I think all the best people are a little bit bonkers. And I think Bob Marley had it all figured out—don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver and gold.