Dr. Lauren Czaplicki is an environmental engineer, mycologist, science communicator, and entrepreneur based out of Longmont, CO. She is passionate about finding new ways to use fungi to mitigate our impact on the environment. She takes a DNA-based approach to identifying fungal communities and designs mycoremediation strategies based on what the communities need to degrade pollutants. She also researches how native fungi can limit the impact of catastrophic wildfire in the West. She has written multiple research articles about her innovative mycoremediation approach harnessing native soil fungi to address legacy pollutants. The American Society of Civil Engineers featured one of her articles in their 60th Anniversary State-of-the-Art Reviews. Lauren is a past Duke Superfund trainee, Pratt School of Engineering Fellow, and Dean’s Graduate Fellow.
She created Science by Design, LLC, a company that brings together her two loves: mycoremediation and science communication. Science by Design moves innovative mycoremediation projects forward and helps technologists design engaging science communication strategies. Her overall goal is to make mycoremediation, and more broadly, science, more accessible so that everyone can participate and benefit from it! In her downtime, Lauren can be found playing with new recipes for mushrooms in her kitchen or keeping an eye out for fungi living the high life in the mountains.