About Laura
In a nutshell...
Laura is a science communicator. She tells stories about cool discoveries and scientific innovation in a way that is understandable and relevant to people from various cultural and knowledge backgrounds.
Science is such a big part of society - from smartphones and healthcare to predicting the weather and tackling crime. But it can be really confusing unless it's explained clearly and in an engaging way. This is what Laura does - and helps others to do too.
Storytelling in Aotearoa New Zealand
Laura currently freelances as a marketing and communications consultant - both independently and as part of the wonderful team at GoodSense.
From 2018 to 2022, Laura served as President of the Science Communicators Association of New Zealand (SCANZ).
Laura simultaneously spent five years as the national communications coordinator for Curious Minds, a New Zealand Government initiative supporting STEM (science, technology, engineering, maths) engagement for all New Zealanders (not just school students), until the website was decommissioned in mid-2021.
Prior to this, Laura worked at the Science Media Centre, where she translated complex research papers into concise plain English news story summaries for busy jounalists and helped scientists communicate their work clearly to the media.
In 2016, she founded Mātau Taiao (with explicit consent from Māori knowledge holders), which shares inspiring stories from people bringing together Indigenous knowledge and science. It was the first blog of its kind in Aotearoa New Zealand.
A fan of continuous learning, Laura has achieved A grades in Indigenous Knowledge and Science (2022), Social Marketing (2019) and Māori Science (2016) at Victoria University of Wellington. She also has a Diploma in Te Reo Māori and Tikanga (Mātauranga) Māori (2016-2022) and a Certificate in Small Business and Project Management (2018) from Te Wānanga o Aotearoa.
Background
Before arriving in Aotearoa about a decade ago, Laura spent 10 years communicating science in the UK, Canada and Australia.
Highlights include: working at Think-Lab as a communications consultant for Defra, IPEM and others; co-founding Science London (the central city branch of the British Science Association); and leading tours through London's Science Museum. In 2007 she was awarded the runner up prize in the Daily Telegraph Science Writer Awards, the UK's most prestigious science writing competition.
Laura holds an MSc in Science Communication from Imperial College London and a Bachelor of Science (International Honours) in Human Genetics from the University of Leeds. The latter included a year at the University of California, Irvine, where I took papers in Native American Studies as well as Biology.