Guest Kira Lawrence felt, in high school, that she was considered odd by the academic kids because she was a “jock” and wasn’t quite a mainstream athlete because she was a “brain.” In college she felt accepted for both of those identities in a place that had lots of people who were both. But, in realizing she was gay, she gained a whole new perspective on what it meant to feel “othered.” While initially frustrating, she contends that that perspective has infused her personal and professional passions with a fight for more equality.

At a time when mainstream religion did not seem welcoming to her, she ended up finding a connection to the universe through earth sciences, her selected major. She went on to graduate school in the subject and began her focus on climate science. The safeguarding of our planet for future generations has become her focus and she has recently found ways to spend more time applying her research knowledge to the pressing real-world problems facing humanity today. Outside of environmental work, her local activism also centers on making society's future brighter.//In this episode, find out from Kira how unearthing strength in difference can help us leave things better than we found them…on Roads Taken with Leslie Jennings Rowley.

About This Episode's Guest

Kira Lawrence who is the John H. Markle Professor of Geology at Lafayette College. She is an expert in paleoclimatology, paleoceanography, and earth systems history who uses the remnants of organisms preserved in ocean sediments to reconstruct past changes in ocean surface temperature to help us sort out where we are today and where we might be headed in the future. She is currently applying her expertise outside of academia, working to inform climate-related policy within New Jersey's Division of Clean Energy at the state’s Board of Public Utilities, which has been tasked with many of the elements of the clean-energy transition plans in New Jersey. She lives there with her wife and son, who will certainly know that at the end of her days, she will have done all she can for the planet.

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

Better Environments: Kira Lawrence on finding strength in difference and leaving the world better

Roads Taken