Lauren Schaefer

“I chose to do my master of science at Michigan Tech because of the international program INVOGE (International Geological Masters in Volcanology and Geotechniques), which let me study in Italy and France for the first year of my degree. I can thank those international relationships I built during graduate school for the postdoctoral position I have now.”

Toward the end of her master’s degree, Lauren Schaefer ’16 decided to remain at Michigan Tech for a PhD with her advisor Associate Professor Thomas Oommen. “It was an obvious choice. I loved the community at Michigan Tech, Dr. Oommen was an amazing advisor, and I was able to design my own PhD project.”

“The Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences department was a second family with countless memorable moments, but if I had to pick one, spending summer days on Professor Emeritus Bill Rose’s island off the coast of the peninsula kayaking, sauna-ing, and grilling ranks pretty high!”

Schaefer is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. “I am living in a geologist’s paradise and continuing to research volcano and landslide hazards. I’ve expanded my working relationships beyond academia and currently have projects mitigating natural hazards with government agencies and emergency managers.” Most recently, a collaborative project to investigate volcanic collapse hazards, for which she’s a lead scientist, was awarded nearly half a million dollars from New Zealand’s Natural Hazards Research Platform.

During her master’s and PhD, she received several grants and fellowships through NASA (Earth and Space Science Fellowship), the National Science Foundation (East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes Fellowship), the Michigan Space Grant Consortium (Graduate Fellowship), American Geophysical Union (AGU), the Association for Environmental and Engineering Geologists, and Google Earth. Her graduate research was honored with Michigan Tech’s 2016 Exceptional Graduate Student Scholar award and the 2017 AGU Natural Hazards Graduate Research award.

“Take initiative, try new things, and don’t blind yourself to opportunities.”

March 13, 2018