Research Scientist
Dr. Laura Osburn is a research scientist in the Center for Education and Research in Construction (CERC). Laura has over eight years of qualitative research experience with expertise in how storytelling impacts decision-making. She has brought her expertise to a broad range of social, cultural, and organizational contexts including architect, engineering, and construction (AEC) teams and online organizations. Laura currently works on several research grants, including an NSF funded project on energy modeling and project team collaboration and communication. In the 2016-2017 academic year, Laura will be working on the UW Innovation award project, “Engineering Communication in Data Rich Environments: How do we support innovation in interdisciplinary teams?” This research will study how engineers communicate with data and data visualizations for interdisciplinary innovation and generating solutions. As a research associate, Laura also helps support CERC research initiatives through research collaboration, grant development, data collection and analysis support, IRB consultation, and mentoring Construction Management graduate students in qualitative and interpretative research design and writing.