Lauren hails from a coastal town in New Jersey, and was so interested in marine science from a young age that she attend a marine science magnet school, The Marine Academy of Science and Technology. From there, she completed her undergrad work at Eckerd College in St.Petersburg, Florida with a B.S. in Marine Science and a minor in Chemistry. During her undergraduate, Lauren found her passion for marine genetics, and completed projects on multiple species of pipe fish. She also held internships at the Center for Human Genetics Research in Boston, Massachussetts, and at the University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science. All of this work culminated in a senior thesis that was completed jointly with Eckerd College and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute on the genetic differences between bonnethead sharks from two regions in the Gulf of Mexico.
After graduation Lauren headed to Bimini, Bahamas to work as a field research intern at the Bimini Biological Field Station where she assisted three PhD students with daily field work includeing shark handling, observation and behavior analysis. Lauren was then accepted into the Goetze Lab at the University of Hawaii where she has currently just finished her first year of graduate school in the MSc track. Lauren is working on using next generation sequencing techniques to explore adaptive divergence across ocean biomes in the marine, calanoid copepod, Pleuromamma xiphias. She hope to continue marine genetics work through her PhD in hopes of using this knowledge to inform better management strategies for threatened species. When she is not working in the lab or out in the field, Lauren’s other passion is playing competitive rugby with the local Lady Harlequins, which is part of the larger Hawaii Harlequins Rugby Football Club.
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