Laurie Friday
MA (Cantab), PhD (Exeter)
College roles
Privileges of a Fellow Emerita
Biography
Laurie studied Natural Sciences (Zoology) at Clare College, Cambridge, before taking a PhD in freshwater ecology at the University of Exeter.
She was a JRF at Darwin College and a Fellow, Tutor and College Lecturer in Ecology in Newnham, till she left in 2000 to head the University’s Graduate Registry. She subsequently was Secretary of the Graduate School of Life Sciences, and Secretary of the Degree Committees in Biology, Medicine, Earth Sciences & Geography, and Physical Sciences. In 2015 she was appointed Director of the Isaac Newton Trust, a charity which funds research in Cambridge.
Laurie’s publications include Wicken Fen: the making of a wetland nature reserve (Harley Books, 1997 – runner up for the Natural World Book of the Year award) and guides to the water beetles of Great Britain and Ireland for the Royal Entomological Society. She was an initiator of plans to begin a century-long project to regenerate biodiversity in the fens and was until recently a Research Programme Manager in the Cambridge Centre for Landscape Regeneration. In retirement, she continues to research hydrological and ecological aspects of the Fens and has recently become an advisor to the McDonald Institute's Future Fenscapes Archaeological and Heritage Research Initiative.