Dr. Lauren Harrell is a statistician/data scientist, researcher, photographer, outdoor enthusiast, and most importantly, lover of whales. She currently works as a Staff Data Scientist in AI for Nature within Google Research. Since early 2018, Lauren has contributed part of her time to the development of bioacoustics AI/ML models for the detection and classification of whale and bird vocalizations, and she continues to work on models and analysis tools for cetacean vocalizations. She also conducts research on improving species distribution and occupancy models, including synthesizing multimodal data collections and converting AI-annotated output into conservation insights. Lauren developed heterogeneous graph neural network approach for modeling species and ecosystem interactions. 

To create better statistical and AI models, she believes it is imperative to understand the data collection process and loves participating in fieldwork at every opportunity. Lauren completed her PhD in Biostatistics at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and has her bachelors in Biology with a sequence in Scientific Modeling from Claremont McKenna College. Prior to joining Google, she was a Research Scientist at the National Center for Education Statistics within the US Department of Education and Professorial Lecturer at the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs. 

Lauren’s love of whales has taken her all over the world to study and experience cetaceans in their natural environment, including southern dwarf minkes in the Great Barrier Reef, belugas in the Cunningham Inlet in the Canadian Arctic circle, orcas surrounding Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland, and humpbacks everywhere from the fjords of Alaska, to southeast Australia, and the Antarctic peninsula (twice). In most travels, she brings hydrophones along with her camera equipment to listen in on their amazing vocalizations. Despite living in an oceanless state of Colorado, during the non-winter seasons she spends almost every day on the water as a competitive rower (including a gold medal from the 2023 Head of the Charles Regatta). Lauren is a member of the Explorers Club and follows the philosophy of “have hydrophones/camera, will travel.”

Publications can be found on Lauren's Google Scholar Page