Dr. Laura Meredith

Laura Meredith is an interdisciplinary scientist working at the intersection of functional microbiology and atmospheric chemistry. She has been an Assistant Professor in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment (SNRE) since January 2017 and was the Director of the Biosphere 2 Tropical Rain Forest during the WALD experiment. Laura was trained as a chemist at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which she then applied to study atmospheric chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with PhD advisor Ron Prinn. She became more firmly rooted in ecosystem science and soil microbiology in her NSF Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship in geobiology at Stanford University with Paula Welander. Laura came to Tucson first to study soil microbial methane cycling and global change in tropical forests as a postdoc with Scott Saleska at University of Arizona, and happily stayed in her current faculty position. Laura is passionate about integrating across disciplines to understand the role of microbes in shaping atmospheric composition in both research and teaching. Laura enjoys teaching in formal courses and has a passion for mentoring high school and undergraduate students in inquiry-based learning through research projects.