Areas of expertise

Laura's areas of expertise include:

• weather and climate impacts on the spread of Bluetongue
• dispersal of FMD

Publications by Laura Burgin 

Current activities

The main focus of Laura's work is a collaborative project with the Institute for Animal Health, Pirbright, to develop an early-warning system to advise  Defra of incursions of Bluetongue disease to the UK, by wind-borne infected midges. Her work assimilates field and laboratory experiments on the flight characteristics of midges into the Met Office's Numerical Atmospheric-dispersion Modelling Environment (NAME).

Laura is also currently in her final year of a PhD, with the  School of Geography at the University of Exeter. For her thesis, she works closely with  IAH and Rothamsted Research to research the impacts of weather and climate change on the spread of disease vectors and crop pests.

As part of the Atmospheric Dispersion Research and Response Group, Laura helps maintain the capability of the Met Office to provide scientific support to  IAH and the UK government during outbreaks of animal
diseases such as FMD. 

Career background

Prior to joining the Met Office in 2006, Laura completed a BSc in Geophysics at the University of Edinburgh and an MSc in Applied Meteorology at the University of Reading