Lauren Alexander Augustine is the Executive Director for the Gulf Research Program at the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine. She oversees the management and use of the Deepwater Horizon $500 million in settlement funds entrusted to the National Academies by the Department of Justice. She has been with the National Academies since 2002. In this time, Lauren has worked in a variety of roles on a broad range of topics pertaining to water, natural disasters, international programs, risk, and resilience. Prior to joining the Gulf Research Program, she served as Director of the Resilient America Program, was the Country Director for the African Science Academy Development Initiative (ASADI), Directed the Disasters Roundtable. Outside of her work at the National Academies, Lauren has served on the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Risk and Resilience, and is a NATO Expert for the Civil Protection Group and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Lauren earned her B.S. in applied mathematics and systems engineering and her M.S. in environmental planning and policy from the University of Virginia, and her Ph.D. in an interdisciplinary program that combined physical hydrology, geomorphology, and ecology from Harvard University.