Index
- Education
- Food Systems Experience
- Storytelling Experience
- Teaching Experience
- Community Organizing
- Research Experience
- Conferences, Presentations, & Manuscripts
____________Education_____________________________________________________________________________
Virginia Tech, 2018 –2021
Blacksburg, Virginia
Masters of Science: Science and Technology in Society
Chair: Dr. Saul Halfon
Total GPA: 3.93
Thesis: From the Trashcan to the Chicken Bucket
New Mexico Tech, 2011-2016
Socorro, New Mexico
Bachelor of Science: Mechanical Engineering
Minor: Biology
Total GPA: 3.42
Two Yr. Cumulative: GPA: 3.67
____________Food Systems Experience________________________________________________________________
2022 Season | Farmhand with Dirt Rich Farm – Buffalo, NY The 5 acre farm uses organic and low-till practices to maintain and grow healthy soil to supply weekly farmers market, whole sale, and 150+ CSA. I help the farm operate efficiently, maintaining productive beds, harvesting produce, and managing infrastructure (i.e. trellesing, high tunnels, landscape fabric etc.).
2021 Season | Farmhand with Future Economy Collective – Blacksburg, VA
FEC is a mutual aid in SW Virginia dedicated to bringing locally grown foods and other essential toiletries to families in need. The collective grows donated seed and transplants on a ¼ acre plot. The vegetables I helped to plant and maintain were distributed to 100+ families in SW Virginia.
2018, 2020 | Clerk/Web Developer with Eats Natural Foods – Blacksburg, VA
My duties included stocking, filling orders, interacting with customers, and developing and maintaining the website. During the pandemic, my partner and I sewed cloth masks for the entire crew during the n95 shortage. I created fillable forms and procedures to process online orders for curbside and delivery groceries. http://eatsnaturalfoods.com/
2019-2020 | Farmhand with Singing Spring Farm – Craig Co, VA
The farm is a whole diet model, specializing in heirloom fruits and vegetables; goat milk, kefir, and cheese; culinary & medicinal herbs; eggs; and pastured lamb, goat, and poultry. I volunteered occassionly to help process hemp, weed, harvest, and watch the farm while the farmers were away.
2018-2022 | Home Gardening
I have grown produce in the climates of SW Virginia and the arid high desert of New Mexico. During the 2018-2020 summers, we grew 30% of our total vegetable intake and generated 100% of our organic compost. In 2021-2022, I transitioned my mother’s 5-acre plot to a no-till garden and pasture using techniques of the deep compost system and winter cover crops to eliminate invasive Bermuda grass, improve soil salinity and organic matter, and retain groundwater.
1998-2011 | Member of Clever Clovers 4-H Club – Aztec, NM
As a family, we raised chickens, turkeys, and ducks for eggs and meat, goats for meat, and horses for riding.
Applicable Skills:
Small urban farm experience; Seeding and transplanting; Decreased & eliminated tillage; Irrigation; pest management; Increased soil health (i.e. cover crops, use of organic fertilizers and compost); Infrastructure (i.e. high tunnel, green house, trellising, landscape fabric etc.); animal husbandry; harvesting for storage and sale, inventory, customer service.
____________Storytelling Experience_________________________________________________________________
2021-Present | Trash Talk – a Podcast
Trash Talk is a podcast series of histories surrounding the topics of waste and featuring various peoples stories about their relationship to waste and disposability either in their adolescence or today. Theit are three aims of the podcast: (1) to unobscure the ideologies and infrasturctures surrounding waste culture; (2) engage in a process of mending and reimagining our relationship to consumption; and (3) highlight communities that practice alternative philosophies to waste. I have completed the first episode, which -through storytelling- discusses the presence of the trashcan in our home and explores a childlike lens of disposed objects. https://laurabernadette.com/trash-talk-podcast/
2018-Present | Myalgia Monologues – a Blog
“I am a painting chipping on the wall. Graffiti defying the law only growing more beautiful with age. I wear the sun spots on my face knowing this journey may just break me.”
-MM 2018
I started Idealistic Myalgia at the height of grieving and coming to terms with my health struggles in 2018. I envisioned the space as a place to journal my pain, and to grow a community of fellow lost hearts and wisdom wagers. I hoped to document my journey of learning to accept the limitations of my health. I recently returned to the the space and renamed the space Myalgia Monologues with the intention of starting a podcast Myalgia Cafe to discuss issues surrounding chronic illness and feature disability stories. https://painandidealism.wordpress.com
2019-2020 | Podcast Manager – In Place
In Place podcast discussed and destigmatized the lived experiences of communities effected by displacement and experiencing resettlement through interviews and stories. I supervised and collaborated with 20 students to build the foundation for a -podcast, to discuss displacement in the Virginia Commonwealth. I conducted weekly work meetings, monthly planning session, and 3 large workshops featuring guest speakers. I advised 8 interviews with various people affected by displacement or resettlement service providers. I created educational workshops to teach the students skills ranging from the audio software to sensitive etiquette for interviewing communities like those of recently resettled refugees: https://www.inplacepodcast.com/
2017-2019 | EcoMouthPiece – a Blog
EcoMouthPiece is a platform where I discussed the issues of environmental injustice and explored the impacts that I could make in my life and community. It started as a blog to explore my fear of facing climate change, waking up everyday as a human, and finding a sense of meaning in a world defined by consumption. It evolved into a source of environmental data, stories about various issues stemming from consumer industries, and a compilation of my life practices regarding consumption and disposal. While my views have evolved and grown, this blog informed my pursuit of graduate education. https://thebittergreentruth.wordpress.com/
____________Teaching Experience___________________________________________________________________
2021 Jan-Aug | Forest School Sub & Teacher withThe Mayapple School – Blacksburg, VA
I substituted preschool and helped organize and run camps including:
- “Outdoor Engineers” – a camp that featured natural building and forts for 6-9yo.
- “Appalachian Trail Retreat” – A backpacking and art themed retreat for 12-15yo.
2021 Jan-May | Graduate Student Teaching Assistanship – Virginia Tech
Collaborator: Professor Fabian Prieto-Ñañez
I developed a course syllabus around the issues of waste with specific focus on the global south; exploring ideas like the global waste management strategies of externalization into the Global South, interesting philosophies and practices of waste repurpose and decolonization. The syllabus incorporates relfexive, engaged and participatory exercises throughout the course to encourage accessible, motivational and meaningful space for learning.
2018-2020 | Yoga Instructor – Blacksburg Yoga Collective, Blacksburg, VA
I am a certified Sivanada Instructor. I helped facilitate a donation‐based yoga collective to provide affordable, culturally engaged, and accessible classes that benefit the broader community.
2016 | Programming Instructor – San Juan College, Farmington, NM
I taught engineering transfer students an introduction to computer programming workshop and guided creative projects using Matlab.
2009‐2011 | Teacher’s Assistant with Kids Kollege -San Juan College, NM
I assisted instructors in conducting summer enrichment classes and events. Kids from 4‐14yo
Applicable Skills:
Presentation, Experiential & outdoor education; Creative curriculum design; Classroom management; Democratic project facilitation; Accessible and Persuasive writing; Youth engagement
____________Community Organizing____________________________________________________________________
2022-Present | WNY Young Farmers Coalition – Member
I attend the founding meetings of western New York chapter to network and pool resources amongst the farmers of the region.
2022–Present | Grassroots Gardens Therapeutic Garden Task Force – Member
I participate in group functions to network and plan gardening efforts with service providers and within the Buffalo, NY community.
2019 -2020 | Virginia Tech for Climate Justice – Lead Coordinator
I acted as a lead coordinator with a grassroots community group – Virginia Tech for Climate Justice. We successfully advocated for the revision of VT’s climate action commitment. With upper administration, I presented relevant scientific evidence, external university policies, & UN recommendations. Overseeing the task forces on Energy and Waste, I helped draft the clauses that were eventually added to the updated climate action commitment: https://www.facilities.vt.edu/sustainability/climate-action-commitment.html
2019 -2021 | Disability Alliance Caucus – Member
As students, staff, and faculty with disabilities we worked to improve campus accessibility.
2017-2018 | 5Gyres Institute – Ambassador
A nonprofit dedicated to empowering political and civic action around the crisis of plastic pollution through education about personal consumption, policy campaigns, and clean-ups of vital-public ecosystems. I have lead small beach clean ups and wrote articles about the effects of plastic on marine environments including an entire post on the microplastics of cigarette butts.
____________Research Experience_______________________________________________________________________
2018-2021 | From the Trashcan to the Chicken Bucket: towards an ideology of composting – Masters Research
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
The purpose of this thesis is to explore the role of the trashcan as a waste management technology within our homes and use my own stories about alternative experiences of waste and waste management to challenge the normative narratives surrounding waste. Using historical, storytelling, and reflexive methods, I engage the trashcan as a site through which to unobscure and unlearn our relationship to consumption and waste. I interrogate the trashcan as a spectacle to understand how material disposability arose in the twentieth century and how the global systems of waste management inform(ed) individual practices of waste and wasting. Using the lens of emergent strategy and change, I propose an alternative form of pedagogy called the compost pedagogy. In the compost pedagogy, the chicken bucket speaks to a cyclical waste system that mends and reimagines our consumption beggining with narratives of worms, chicken starch, and decomposition.
2021 May-Aug | Gynecological Literacy Grant – Graduate Researcher, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
Adviser: Christine Labuski, PhD
I helped collect resources, generate ideas, and meet with potential collaborators for a unique web-based community scholarship. Dr. Labuski envisioned a web-space for collaborative imagining, a library of resources, and a community surrounding topics such as DIY Gynecology, trans-medicine and other relevant histories.
2017 | Global Forums on Urban and Regional Resilience – Graduate Researcher, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
Principal Investigator: Dr. Jennifer Lawrence
I looked at history behind disasters considered the political rhetoric of “natural” and “unnatural”, which was informed by Dr. Jennifer Lawrences work on Denaturalizing Disaster and the Deep Horizon Disaster. I studied cascading affects within communities and ecosystems using the Deep Horizon Oil Spill as a case study into how extractive energy industries evolved through the industrial age and how they relate to slow catastrophe and toxicity today.
2017 | Centro de Imágenes Biomédicas UC – Whitaker Fellow, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
Principal Investigator: Dr. Pablo Irarrázaval
Investigating dynamic MSK imaging, using rapid acquisition.
2016 | Mechanical Neuroimaging Lab- Graduate Research Assistant, University of Delaware, Newport, Delaware
Adviser: Dr. Curtis L. Johnson
Participated in MR elastography scan protocols for MSK, Uterus, Liver, and Brain. Processed data in MATLAB and FSL to determine the viscoelastic properties.
2015 | Radiology/Mechanical Eng. Joint Group – Undergraduate Researcher, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Adviser(s): Dr. Garry Gold, Dr. Marc Levenston, Dr. Emily McWalter, & Marianne Black
Designed MRI compatible loading rig for static compression studies of the knee. Studied MRI fundamentals and participated in scans.
2011 -2015 | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Lab – Undergraduate Researcher, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, New Mexico
Adviser: Dr. Kevin Kirk
2014, May-Aug | Animas Environmental – Environmental Tech, Farmington, New Mexico
Preformed storm water assessment, reclamation, and below ground tank jobs. Conducted database research and helped test, choose and set up a project management systems like Asana, Eventbrite, Google Forms, and others.
2009–2011 | Soil Ecology Researcher – New Mexico State Univ. Principal Investigator: Jeremy Klass PhD. & Jacqueline Beacham M.S.
I monitored soil nematode makeup in grasslands with encroaching mesquite and desertification onset.
2007 – 2011 | – Nematology Researcher, San Juan Community College, Farmington, NM
Advisers: Dr. Veronica Evans, Michael K. Lane
I assayed the microbiome of dormant topsoil and studied soil rehabilitation techniques to limit erosion and reclaim native diversity on abandoned oil & gas wellsites.
____________Conferences, Presentations, & Manuscripts________________________________________________________________
|Lane,L.B. Busted Perceptions: A Visual and Verbal dialogue about the power politics behind the identity’s we embody.‹ Gender, Bodies, and Technology Biannual Conference. Canvas Installation. April 25-27th 2019 Roanoke, VA
|Lane,L.B. Della Maggiora G. Burdiles A. Irarrazaval S. Irarrazaval P.
‹ Protocol for In Vivo acquisition and Fully-Automated Segmentation of the ACL. Annual ISMRM. Paris, France. June 2018.
‹ Rapid Acquisition using Compressed Sensing and Flex-Coil for applications in MSK. Annual ISMRM. … 2018
‹ MRI volumetric study of native ACL anatomy at different levels of flexion. Annual ESSKA. Scotland, UK. April 2018.
|G McIlvain, LB Lane, E McCormick, EH Telzer, CL Johnson,
‹ Mechanical Properties of the Adolescent Human Brain. Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping,
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, June 25-29, 2017.
|Lane,L.B. Diaz-Strandberg, A. Mark, J. Chicas, R. Prokash, C. Katko, B. Ryu, D.
‹Multifunctional Energy Storage Material for Supercapacitor Applications. New Mexico Tech Mechanical Engineering
Senior Design Clinic. Research Paper, Poster and Oral Presentation. Presented April 2016 Socorro, NM.
|Lane,L.B. Bertoy,L.J. Black,M.S. McWalter,E.J. Gold,G.E. Levenston,M.E.
‹Magnetic Resonance Imaging Compatible Knee Rig for Static Open-Chain Models of Knee Extension. International Society
for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine Osteoarthritis 8th Annual Workshop Abstract. Listed as Poster #17. Presented
September 2015 Pacific Grove, CA.
‹Dual Quadriceps and Hamstring Loading Instrument for Ex Vivo MRI Models of Knee Extension. Biomedical Engineering
Society Annual Meeting Abstract. Presented during the “Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Engineering Posters” Session
October 2016 Tampa, FL.
|Lane,L.B. Stoer, R. Sanchez, C. Koehler, R. Coss, S. Lee, J. Smith, K. Martinez, M. Dang, C. Mercer, D. Salas, C. Grow, D.
‹Mechanism for Simulated Motion of the Human Hand. Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting Abstract.
Presented during the “Articular Cartilage and Joints Posters” Session October 2016 Tampa, FL.
|Lane,L.B. Monitoring the Disturbances of Soil Micro-Ecosystems in Dormant Topsoil: Using Nematodes and Studying
Methods to Rehabilitate Soil for Effective Site Restoration.
‹18th Annual International Petroleum and Biofuels Environmental Conference IPEC Manuscript. Presented under “Site
Reclamation and Restoration”. See The IPEC Archive 2011 Proceedings:
http://ipec.utulsa.edu/Conf2011/Full%20Manuscripts%20&%20PP%20presentations/Lane_12.pdf.
‹Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Presented poster May 2011 Los Angeles, CA. Awarded Third in
Environmental Management. For abstract see the Student Science Archive:
https://apps2.societyforscience.org/abstracts/project.cfm?PID=EM049&Year=2011
