Laurie Brown

Laurie Brown is a Professor in the Department of Earth, Geographic, and Climate Sciences at the University of Massachusetts. Her career spans decades of pioneering work in paleomagnetism and geophysics, with a focus on understanding Earth's magnetic field and its applications to planetary geology.

• Education: Ph.D. in Geophysics and Oceanography from Oregon State University (1974), Master's in Geophysics from the University of Wyoming, and a B.A. in Mathematics from Middlebury College.

Her research integrates paleomagnetism with diverse geoscience domains, including tectonic rotations in the Rio Grande Rift, secular variation of lava flows from Easter Island, ash flow tuff correlations in Colorado, and tracking magnetic field reversals in Chilean volcanoes. Current projects emphasize secular variation of Earth’s magnetic field over the past 5 million years and the study of magnetized Proterozoic rocks as analogs for Martian magnetic anomalies. This work spans fieldwork in southern South America, the Atacama Desert, Patagonia, the Adirondacks, and southern Norway.

Brown established a research lab in paleomagnetism at the University of Massachusetts, contributing to both research and teaching programs in geophysics.