Laura Brewington

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.