Laura Harrison (BS, 2006), our Undergraduate Advisor, has been accepted as a graduate student by the UCSB Department of Geography. She will end her staff position Tuesday, July 3rd in order to do a “walkabout” before beginning her studies with Dr. Joel Michaelsen and the FEWSNET (www.fews.net) project in the fall. Apart from being the poster girl on our undergraduate brochure (“Next to studying Geography, my second favorite thing is talking about Geography, so come on by and say hello!”), interning as Geography Graphic Artist for two years, doing GIS and Remote Sensing work here and at the Natural Resources Defense Council in D.C., and gaining notoriety as the undergraduate geography student whose identification of Chinese nuclear facilities made the front page of The Washington Times (Feb. 16, 2006), Laura is also a true explorer.
I make a point of asking Laura what she did over the weekend when I come in to work on Mondays, simply because her answers usually blow my mind. “I took my first flying lesson”; “I drove down Baja in my Toyota Corolla”; “I did a 20 mile hike in Los Padres National Forest”; “I cooked a turkey in the ground”; “I bought a billiards table”; “I went kayaking around Santa Cruz Island”; “ I watched elephant seals mate”; “I flew to the North Shore and camped out for three days”; and on and on. And her proposed “walkabout” before beginning her grad studies is no less impressive.
Laura plans to spend 2 ½ weeks in Fiji and then mosey on to New Zealand for 5 more. She will first hop along the Yasawa Islands for some world class relaxing and snorkeling, then explore the cultural and surfing scenes in other parts of the country. In New Zealand she plans on backpacking, sky diving, caving, white water rafting, and generally bumming around. Laura will happily return in September with sore feet (and hopefully all of her toes, since it is winter down there!). Soon after she will take on two very exciting roles: that of UCSB Graduate Student and being Auntie Laura to her very first niece.
Laura has been a star member of our staff team for the past year, and I know that she will shine just as brightly as a graduate student. Not only is she academically gifted, but she is committed to the discipline and its mission. To quote Laura, “When I declared Physical Geography several years ago, not only did I feel I had found my academic calling, but that I had discovered part of myself as well. I’ve loved working in a field where the main counterparts are the understanding of Earth processes, the use of cutting-edge technology, and the endless possibilities for creative implementation of these tools in worldwide issues.” Amen. We’re delighted to still have Laura in the Department, and I, for one, look forward to continue asking her what she did over the weekend, geographically speaking, of course!
