Laura Wolton is a PhD candidate, instructor, and research assistant at CU Denver’s School of Public Affairs. Prior to Laura’s work with SPA, she co-authored policy assessments with the Colorado Energy Office, the International Renewable Energy Agency, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. She received a graduate certificate in Science and Technology Policy (University of Colorado Boulder) and holds degrees in Marine Science (B.S., Texas A&M at Galveston) and Astrophysical, Planetary and Atmospheric Sciences (M.S., University of Colorado). Her previous science careers at NOAA and NASA fuel her interest in the communication of science, as well as provide her valuable insight into the workings of public science agencies. Laura’s other research interest areas include air quality policy, citizen and bureaucratic dissent, media coverage of technological disasters, and policy narrative construction. Laura’s dissertation focuses on developing an autocoding method to identify and relate the elements of communication in policy narratives such as socially-constructed characters, frames, and blame.