At ISRIC, Laura contributes to and manages digital soil mapping and spatial modelling projects, integrating ground observations with remote sensing data. She is responsible for developing modelling approaches for new mapped soil products (properties and functions) to support sustainable land management in a changing climate. Reproducible research (workflows and results) and the use of open-source tools for spatial analysis are key components of methodological development. Examples of projects in which Laura is involved are SoilGrids and ESA-WorldSoils.

Laura has a background in forestry and environmental sciences. During her PhD, she focused on developing a simplified land-use modelling method for assessing the risk of heavy metal-polluted soil towards human health and evaluating the influence of planning measures on this risk. Other research experiences (JRC - Ispra (I)) included analysing and evaluating pan-European geographical data sets with investigation of data quality and error propagation. 

From 2008 to 2018, Laura worked at the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. The main focus of her research was spatio-temporal modelling and integration of information on soil-plant-climate interactions with land use to assess the role of key natural resources supporting ecosystem services and to quantify the impacts of climate and land use changes at different spatial scales with uncertainty propagation.

Laura's main interests are in pedometrics and digital soil mapping, how to develop new covariates from remote sensing products and how to integrate soil data in the wider context of environmental modelling. 

Laura speaks English, Italian and French.