Lauren Gibson, Ph.D.

Lauren Gibson, Ph.D., serves as the first-ever advisor on youth engagement to the NOAA administrator. In this role, she leads the agency’s efforts to bring youth perspectives into agency decision-making while also working to smooth out NOAA career pathways for young professionals. She firmly believes that young people are some of NOAA’s most important stakeholders and most powerful potential collaborators, both now and moving into the future.

Prior to working with the administrator, Lauren worked in NOAA’s Office of Education, starting in 2018 as a Knauss Marine Policy Fellow and then serving as a contractor focused on youth engagement, congressional outreach and communication until early 2023. 

She earned her Ph.D. from North Carolina State University studying what drives high school students to take different scales of environmental action, from individual actions like picking up litter to collective actions like advocating for local policy change at a city council meeting. She earned her master’s degree in environmental communication and her bachelors degree in earth systems, both from Stanford University.