CONSERVATION LEADERS
Lauren grew up in Miami surrounded by lizards and frogs of diverse national origins. But the Everglades ecosystem just outside the city provided opportunities to interact with the native diversity of Florida, and she would always want to get closer to every alligator than the rest of her friends and family. She got her B.S. in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from the University of Florida, and during that time, she worked with several kinds of birds, amphibians, and reptiles. She went on to get an M.S. in Wildlife and Fisheries Biology at Clemson University, where she got to snorkel the rivers of western North Carolina looking for larval hellbenders and became most comfortable in a wetsuit with her head underwater. From there, she embarked on a plot twist, which was Ph.D. in Fisheries Science at Oregon State University (in progress) on the population dynamics of steelhead trout. While in Oregon, she also worked for the Calapooia Watershed Council, leading river snorkeling field trips for schoolchildren. As ARC’s Hellbender Recovery Coordinator, she leads a region-wide effort to develop a recovery plan for this beloved amphibian.