Laurel Larsen

Laurel G. Larsen is an associate professor in Hydrology at Department of Earth Sciences at Uppsala University. She was former associate professor of earth systems science for the Department of Geography and Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley where she also heads the Environmental Systems Dynamics Laboratory. Her areas of expertise include hydroecology, geomorphology, complex systems, and environmental modeling.

Early life and education Larsen spent much of her childhood playing in and around water in Florida. Her parents both worked in science, as a NASA shuttle engineer and a state water manager. At the age of 16, Larsen began her undergraduate studies at Washington University in St. Louis where she eventually graduated summa cum laude with majors in environmental studies and systems science and mathematics. Larsen's master's thesis is titled Development and Testing of a Coupled Heat and Moisture Transfer Model to Assess Subsurface Moisture Gradients and was completed in 2003. She continued working with the United States Geological Survey National Research Program until 2016 on various other research topics. Some of this research included work on the differences between the hydrogeomorphology of restored and unrestored streams within the Chesapeake Bay watershed and what kind of impacts restoration can have on the surrounding ecosystem. The Florida Everglades have a unique ecosystem composed of ridges with more vegetation and sloughs with less vegetation. Water flows through the entire ecosystem parallel to these "ridge-and-slough" structures providing essential services to the ecosystem; however, human impacts have disrupted the flow of water through the Everglades. 2015, NSF CAREER award 2013, Kohout Early Career Award, Geological Society of America Hydrogeology Division Her most notable publications focus on the formation of aquatic landscapes such as the Florida Everglades and strategies for restoration of these spaces. These topics were previously considered untestable due to the large difference in timescales between the forces forming these landscapes (i.e. hydraulic transport) and the resulting changes in geomorphic and biological evolution. Larsen has been able to quantify and evaluate these systems using mathematical models that consider hydraulic transport on the scale of seconds to months and geomorphology and biology over the course of decades and centuries.

Larsen has also published a picture book called "One Night in the Everglades" in conjunction with the Long Term ecological Research Network, an organization funded by the National Science Foundation.

Personal life

Larsen seemingly enjoys hiking and racing bicycles, both cyclocross and road cycling. Larsen appears interested in cooking and food philosophy as well as claiming artistic ventures such as poetry, guitar, dancing, and visual art.