A linguist, she conducts research on English language variation, sociolinguistic perception, and language and media. Lauren has published articles in Language in Society; Journal of Sociolinguistics; Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience; American Speech; Journal of English Linguistics; Journal of Linguistic Anthropology; and Discourse, Context, & Media. Her book chapters also appear in several edited volumes. She serves on the editorial boards of Discourse, Context, & Media and the Language and Computers book series (Brill) , and she is the Book Review Editor for Language. She is part of the DMAC Faculty Team.