Dr Laura Kor

Dr Laura Kor is a conservation scientist working at the interface of ecological and social systems, focusing on area-based conservation and natural resource management. Laura completed her PhD at King's College London and the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew in 2024 on the conservation of useful plant species in Colombia. This took an interdisciplinary approach, including national-scale biogeographical analysis to identify Important Plant Areas (IPAs), local-scale ethnobotanical methods for knowledge co-production, and a global evaluation of IPAs to assess their conservation outcomes.

Laura's experience includes work across the private, academic, and NGO sectors. As an ecologist at a global engineering consultancy, she led a specialist International Biodiversity Team, gaining extensive experience in the practical application of biodiversity policy and regulation on projects in the UK and internationally. She currently works as an Innovation Fellow on the E3 ‘Sharing Space for Nature’ initiative, bringing a strong motivation to help bridge the gap between conservation research and practice to this role.

• Spatial conservation planning, particularly the Important Plant Area approach
• Natural resource management and conservation-through-use for plants
• Business and biodiversity
• Aligning global conservation priorities, scientific methods, and local knowledge

Full Member (MCIEEM) of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management
Member (MRSB) of the Royal Society of Biology