Laurel serves as the Program Manager for the Tribal Projects component of the NARA grant assisting the NARA Graduate student teams via identification and scoping of a project. Laurel is an enrolled member of the Yakama Nation and worked there 17+ years prior to returning to school at the University of Washington (UW), School of Forest Resources. Laurel holds a BS in Forest Resources-Wildlife Science and is currently finishing a MS in Forest Resources within Dr. Ernesto Alvarado’s Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Lab. Her MS research is entitled: “National to Local: a Pre & Post Assessment of FCCS landscape variables for CSKT lands.”

In addition, Laurel has been accepted into the UW Bioresource Based Energy for Sustainable Societies, IGERT PhD track program. As a part of this program and under the direction of IGERT Director, Dr. Daniel T. Schwartz; Laurel led an Interdisciplinary team of PhD track students from both the School of Forestry and College of Engineering in completing: solar, wind and Biomass assessments for the Confederated Salish & Kootenai during the 2010-2011 academic year. Laurel has tentatively designed her dissertation proposal: “An international comparative assessment of Indigenous Knowledge Systems within fire prone ecosystems”. She will begin the PhD program in 2012.