Lauren received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Stanford University, and was also a member of the Stanford Archaeology Center. Her research is broadly concerned with cultural heritage, memory politics, and postcolonial cities. Her doctoral dissertation explored these themes through an ethnographic study of urban heritage revitalization initiatives in the Indonesian cities of Semarang, Bandung, and Jakarta. Such initiatives – which increasingly involve not only local players, but also regional and international organizations, government agencies, and traveling technocrats – prompt both a renewed grappling with legacies of the colonial past and an evolving debate over the future of these cities and the welfare of the diverse communities who call them home. The fieldwork for this research was funded in part by a Fulbright U.S. Student Researcher grant.

In addition to this doctoral research, Lauren has published and presented on a variety of subjects related to the socio-political dimensions of cultural heritage, including international cultural diplomacy, inclusive urban governance and social justice, culture and the arts as a source of civic engagement, community-based heritage activism, and postcolonial memory politics in the Netherlands and Indonesia.

Prior to attending Stanford, she received a B.A. summa cum laude in History with a Secondary Field in Archaeology from Harvard University, and an M.Phil. in Archaeology (Archaeological Heritage and Museums) from the University of Cambridge. She has also studied at or been an affiliated with the Institute of Teknologi Bandung in Indonesia; Leiden University in the Netherlands; and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.