Guest Lara Fowler had been a cross-country ski racer and studied Japanese in high school in Portland, Oregon. She took those two pursuits to college and pursued them to their highest. With all of the language requirements and a study abroad program that she wanted to undertake, she had nearly completed a major in Asian Studies. But she also had a long-standing interest in water. So in fulfilling her distribution requirements, she found ways to study water from multiple angles, did off-campus research in the topic, and ultimately won a senior fellowship to devote her final year to writing a book on water policy, in effect creating her own second major in water resource management.

After graduation, she took a year to pursue ski racing but decided to hang up the skiis and get a job in the water world. Recognizing that much of the discourse around water intersected with the law, she went to law school and ultimately worked as a water mediator, bringing disparate voices together to find solutions in water allocation. When her husband got the academic job he had long wanted, she found a new way to apply her skills and spark new interests.

In this episode, find out from Lara how keeping curiosity alive and being willing to ask questions helps you move from novice to expert…on Roads Taken with Leslie Jennings Rowley.

About This Episode's Guest

Lara Fowler is an attorney and mediator who focuses on environmental, energy, and natural resource law, with a specific focus on water-related issues. She has a joint appointment at Penn State Law where she teaches natural resource law and negotiations and the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment where she is working on questions related to water, the Chesapeake Bay, and systems-level behavioral change. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.

Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley

Music: Brian Burrows

Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com

Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com

Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com

Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley

Music: Brian Burrows

Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com

The Deep End: Lara Fowler on Staying Curious and Nurturing Expertise

Roads Taken