Laura A. Stevens

CR Cryospheric Sciences

The 2024 Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Early Career Scientists is awarded to Laura A. Stevens for outstanding research into the links between glacial hydrology and ice dynamics, and for their service to the cryosphere community.

Laura Stevens is an outstanding early career scientist, who’s work focuses on the links between glacial hydrology and ice dynamics. A major and novel theme of Stevens’ work has been to combine Global Positioning System (GPS) observations and computational models to discover the impact of supraglacial meltwater on the motion of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet. Stevens not only produced excellent work on the impact of runoff on ice dynamics, but also on ice-ocean interactions. They pioneered new methods to probe glacier hydrology and dynamics, where they developed collaborations with experimentalists, combining GPS observations with laboratory experiments to infer properties of the subglacial drainage system. Stevens’ work is characterised by an unusual level of creativity, combining a range of techniques from different disciplines. Their excellence and creativity is reflected in their publication and citation record.

Stevens is not only an excellent scientist, but also a dedicated teacher and mentor. In addition, Stevens is an outstanding community-oriented scientist, as shown by their role as a mental health first aider, as an LGBTQIA+ role model, and by their leading role in their department’s Equality Diversity and Inclusion Committee. For all these reasons they are a worthy awardee of the Cryospheric Sciences Division Arne Richter Award for Early Career Scientists.