Laura is a Senior Scientist with the Forests and Governance Program of the Center for International Forestry Research. Her current work focuses on understanding and managing the impacts of globalised trade and investment on forests and forest-dependent communities. Past work has included action research on integrated natural resource management and landscape governance in eastern Africa; human ecological research in the Brazilian Amazon; and agricultural development in Honduras. She has published two edited volumes: Governing Africa’s Forests in a Globalized World (Earthscan, 2009) and Beyond the Biophysical: Knowledge, Culture and Power in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (Springer, 2010). She has also published widely in academic journals, including a forthcoming special issue on the local social and environmental impacts of biofuels in Ecology & Society. She holds a PhD in cultural and ecological anthropology.