Dr Laura Brewington is a Research Fellow at the East-West Center, the Lead Investigator of the Pacific Islands Climate, Health, and Migration project, and the Co-Lead Investigator of the Pacific Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program. She is also a Research Professor at the Arizona State University Global Institute for Sustainability and Innovation.
She designs and conducts collaborative, policy-oriented research to support climate adaptation in Pacific Islands. She received her PhD in Geography from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill based on research in agriculture, invasive species, and conservation in the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador.
She co-founded the Pacific Regional Invasive Species and Climate Change (RISCC) management network and represents the East-West Center on the Pacific Invasives Partnership, promoting a regional coordinated approach to international biosecurity and natural resources management.
Before joining the Center, she held a quarantine and biosecurity fellowship with WildAid, an international marine-conservation NGO, where she coordinated a comprehensive evaluation of the Galapagos quarantine chain. She also completed a post-doctoral fellowship with the Center for Galapagos Studies at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.