Laura is an undergraduate researcher in UCLA's Geography department, currently completing a SCEC SURE 2026 internship at USC under Dr. Ahmed Elbanna. Her work focuses on physics-based 3D dynamic rupture modeling of a Mw 7.8 southern San Andreas Fault ShakeOut scenario, using SeisSol on the EXPANSE supercomputer to study how rate-and-state friction laws and depth-dependent frictional structure shape rupture propagation and ground motion.

Her research foundation was built at Pasadena City College, where she earned degrees in GIS, Geography, and Natural Sciences and conducted award-winning hazard research mapping liquefaction and socioeconomic vulnerability across LA and San Francisco Counties. That work led to a Summer 2025 SOAR/VERITAS internship at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum under Dr. Jennifer Whitten, mapping Venusian lava flows with Magellan SAR data and machine learning classifiers, and to an ongoing collaboration with Dr. Ian Flynn (University of Pittsburgh) on Venus channelized flow morphometry. She will join Dr. Mackenzie Day's GALE Lab at UCLA this fall to study aeolian processes on Venus and Titan.

Laura graduates from UCLA in Spring 2027 and is preparing graduate school applications in planetary geomorphology and GIScience. Both areas of her research center on how physical forces reshape a surface over time, whether through fault rupture beneath Southern California or lava flows and windblown sediment on Venus and Titan.