Deborah Lawrence, associate professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, has recently been named a Jefferson Science Fellow by the U.S. Department of State, pending diplomatic security clearance approval.
Lawrence this year also was named a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fulbright Scholar. She earned these two awards to continue work on the effects of “slash and burn” agriculture and land-use transitions in the tropics.
Guggenheim Fellowship Awards Announcement
The Fulbright U.S. Scholar program, sponsored by the Department of State, each year sends 800 academics and professionals overseas for educational and cultural exchange. Lawrence will serve her fellowship in Thailand in the summer of 2009 and the fall of 2010.
Lawrence’s research is focused in Mexico, Costa Rica and Indonesia, specializing in understanding the consequences of land-use change on tropical ecosystems. Researchers in her group study how vegetation and soils respond to changing uses by humans, focusing on the interplay between vegetation dynamics and nutrient dynamics in secondary (re-growth) tropical forests.