Dr. Laura MacDonald is the Managing Director of the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering & Resilience and the Global Engineering Residential Academic Program at the University of Colorado Boulder. She holds a PhD in Geography and Environmental Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University and a BS in Environmental Engineering from Northwestern University. In her role as Managing Director, Laura applies her depth of expertise in decentralized water treatment and breadth of experience in large-scale research project management to manage the Mortenson Center’s research program in Rwanda and to support the Mortenson Center’s broader research portfolio. Her research has been funded by USAID, the National Science Foundation, and the Autodesk Foundation, among others. Laura also provides administrative, programming and financial oversight of the Mortenson Center’s graduate and undergraduate education programs. More recently, Dr. MacDonald has worked to deepen her expertise in engineering education research as a co-Investigator on two US National Science Foundation-funded research projects, one focused on graduate education in Global Engineering and the other on inter-institutional collaboration for informal undergraduate engineering education. She is a 2023-24 CU Dialogues Faculty Fellow and is pursuing the Just and Equitable Teaching micro-credential to further develop her teaching skills. Dr. MacDonald further applies her management and logistics expertise as the International Carbon Programs Director at Virridy, Inc., a company that specializes in improving global water security through carbon finance. This includes overseeing the implementation of a large-scale school water treatment program in Rwanda and providing technical and logistics support to Virridy’s partners in sub-Saharan Africa to implement their carbon-financed water treatment and supply programs. Prior to joining the Mortenson Center and Virridy, Laura was Knowledge and Research Advisor at the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST). There, she worked to build CAWST's reputation and credibility as a global leader in capacity development and technical support for decentralized water and sanitation services.