Laura Williams

Senior Technician

Phone: 32 32704

Office: Marine Studies Annex

Expertise/Activities:

Laura Williams is currently the Senior Technician at Marine Studies.

She manages the Laboratories at Marine Studies, including procurement and equipment maintenance. She also assists students (undergraduate, post graduate and thesis writing students) and researchers with procurement and logistics. She has also recently been elected to Chairperson for the SAGEONS OHS Committee.

Educational Background/Qualifications:

Laura Williams holds a Master of Science in Marine Science degree from the University of the South Pacific. Her Master’s thesis is based on developing an indigenous freshwater prawn species (Macrobrachium lar) for aquaculture. After graduating with her BSc in Marine Science, Laura was employed by USP as an aquaculture hatchery technician in the Seawater Laboratory at the SMS. Subsequently, while completing research for her MSc thesis, she was also a Laboratory Demonstrator and Tutor for several undergraduate courses offered at the SMS. She has over 4 years of teaching experience as a Tutor in subjects including aquaculture, marine pollution and physical oceanography.

She is also an ACIAR Scholarship Alumni. She has 4 years’ experience as a Technician and 3 years as a Senior Technician at Marine Studies.

Research Interests:

Laura’s research interests include aquaculture, the marine aquarium trade, marine biodiversity conservation and also climate change impacts on marine organisms. And more recently marine and freshwater invertebrates.

Publications & Presentations:

Imamura, T., Seeto, J., Williams, L., Mow, A-M., Vadiga, R. & Lal, M. (2009).

Freshwater prawn and crab hatchery in Fiji with rotifer culture: Rua Cell System.

Suva, Fiji Islands: Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and University of the South Pacific.