Dr. Laura J. Crossey is a professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico, where she began her academic career in 1986. Crossey’s research interests include low-temperature geochemistry; including diagenesis, hydrochemistry and geomicrobiology. Her research approach emphasizes interdisciplinary field research. She has supervised over 25 graduate and 30 undergraduate students, and published in such diverse applications of geochemistry as nutrient cycling in aquatic systems, surface manifestations of mantle degassing (including travertines and springs), microbial diversity in spring systems, sandstone cementation processes during sediment burial, and planetary impact events.

Crossey is an active participant in UNM’s Hydrogeoecology Research Group and co-advises graduate and undergraduate students in Biology and E&PS. Crossey is a leader at UNM in efforts to increase minority participation in science, and is the Director for the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation undergraduate research program in addition to the Bridge to the Doctorate. She is co-principal investigator of EMRGE (Ecohydrogeology of the Middle Rio Grande Environment), an NSF-funded program that places graduate students in Biology and EPS in rural middle schools. With her husband, E&PS professor Karl Karlstrom, she is leading design and installation of a major geoscience exhibition at Grand Canyon National Park: the Trail of Time. She has been elected as a Fellow of the Geologic Society of America, serves as Associate Editor for the Geological Society of America Bulletin, a premier journal in the Earth Sciences, and recently completed a term as President of the Sedimentary Geology Division of the society. She is active in the New Mexico Geological Society, and serves on the Board of the NMGS Foundation. She has been appointed to the New Mexico Math & Science Advisory Committee, a group that advises the state Public Education Department on science and math education, and is President-elect of the New Mexico Academy of Sciences..