Laura Lopez-Hoffman

Laura López-Hoffman is a faculty member in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment, and a research professor at the Udall Center for Public Policy Studies at the University of Arizona.  She is also affiliated with the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and the James E Rogers College of Law. Laura studies the linkages between ecosystems and human society. The objective of her research is to contribute to the development of policies and institutions that protect ecosystems while sustaining their contributions to human well-being. She uses interdisciplinary and comparative research approaches to integrate science and policy, in particular the concept of ecosystem services.  Laura is primarily interested in the ecology and policy of managing trans-boundary systems. Her current work focuses on the surface waters, aquifers, species, ecosystems, and ecosystem services shared by the United States and Mexico and she is particularly interested in how ecological changes and migratory species decline in one region affect nature’s services in another. She is the lead author of the edited book Conservation of Shared Environments: Learning from the United States and Mexico. She has written articles and chapters on bats, monarch butterflies, the Cienega de Santa Clara, Sky Islands, and the impact of the US-Mexico border wall, as well as on mangroves and on climate change.  Laura obtained her Ph.D. from Stanford University in biology and her BA from Princeton University in ecology, public policy, and Latin American studies. Prior to coming to the University of Arizona, she was an NSF post-doctoral fellow at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.