Research Interests
4D Imaging; sustainable material development; thermal cycling in porous media; reactive transport in porous materials
Bio
Professor Dalton joined Duke University in August 2022 after obtaining her PhD from North Carolina State University, MS and BS from West Virginia University. Dr. Dalton is an experimentalist and her research interests include studying and understanding reactive, multiphase transport in porous media. She is particularly interested in understanding and manipulating chemical and physical processes that occur during reactive, multiphase transport in both engineered (cementitious) and natural (geological) porous materials. To this end, she uses quantitative imaging approaches such as X-ray computed tomography (CT), neutron tomography, and electrical imaging modalities including electrical capacitance tomography (ECT). She is interested in using hybrid and simultaneous imaging modalities because complementary and temporal information can be obtained using these approaches to better understand complex processes such as developing innovative methods to sequester CO2.
Education
- B.A. West Virginia Wesleyan College, 2012
- B.S. West Virginia University, 2015
- M.Sc.Eng. West Virginia University, 2016
- Ph.D. North Carolina State University, 2022
Positions
- Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Courses Taught
- ME 491: Special Projects in Mechanical Engineering
- ME 392: Undergraduate Projects in Mechanical Engineering
- EGR 201L: Mechanics of Solids
- CEE 780: Internship
- CEE 702: Graduate Colloquium
- CEE 691: Independent Study: Advanced Topics in Civil and Environmental Engineering
- CEE 690: Advanced Topics in Civil and Environmental Engineering
- CEE 494: Research Independent Study in Civil and Environmental Engineering
- CEE 493: Research Independent Study in Civil and Environmental Engineering
In the News
- Three Engineering Projects to Build Greener Materials (Feb 25, 2025 | Pratt School of Engineering)
- Clean Technologies Exist. But They Need To Be Used To Make Change. (Oct 24, 2024 | Pratt School of Engineering)
- Civil Engineering Is Having a Moment (May 15, 2024 | Pratt School of Engineering)
- Duke Climate Solutions Panel Offers Cautious Hope for a Warming Planet (Feb 9, 2024 | Duke Today)
- Laura Dalton: Watching Mass Move Through Rocks and Other Hard Places (Aug 17, 2022 | Pratt School of Engineering)
Representative Publications
- Tian, Qinyi, Winston Lindqwister, Manolis Veveakis, and Laura E. Dalton. “Learning latent hardening: enhancing deep learning with domain knowledge for material inverse problems.” Philosophical Transactions. Series A, Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences 383, no. 2305 (September 2025): 20240043. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2024.0043.
- Dunn, Patrick J., Alireza Mohammadzadeh, Sai Thejaswini Pamuru, Camille R. Butkus, Julie N. Weitzman, Qinyi Tian, Nihan Yonet Tanyeri, et al. “A Liposomal Carrier to Reduce Leaching of Ionic Nutrient Loads in Agricultural Soils.” Environmental Science & Technology 59, no. 23 (June 2025): 11574–85. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.4c14370.
- Lindqwister, W., J. Peloquin, L. E. Dalton, K. Gall, and M. Veveakis. “Predicting compressive stress-strain behavior of elasto-plastic porous media via morphology-informed neural networks.” Communications Engineering 4, no. 1 (April 2025): 73. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44172-025-00410-9.
- Tian, Qinyi, Sara Goodhue, Hou Xiong, and Laura E. Dalton. “Geo-SegNet: A contrastive learning enhanced U-net for geomaterial segmentation.” Tomography of Materials and Structures 7 (March 2025): 100049–100049. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmater.2025.100049.
- Tian, Qinyi, Winston Lindqwister, Manolis Veveakis, and Laura E. Dalton. “Learning Latent Hardening (LLH): Enhancing Deep Learning with Domain Knowledge for Material Inverse Problems,” January 16, 2025.