Lawrence was born and raised in Trinidad, where she earned a bachelor's degree from University of the West Indies at St. Augustine.[1] She worked as a technical trainer, and after 2004 or 5 also began adjuncting at UWI to teach technical writing.[2] In 2006, she decided to leave industry for academia, ultimately returning to university at Illinois Institute of Technology.[2] There, she earned an M.Sc. in Technical Communication and Information Design in 2010 and a Ph.D. in Technical Communication in 2013.[1] She was then a Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgia Tech.[3] In 2018, Lawrence became a professor at Towson University, where she reached the rank of associate professor.[2]
A primary focus of Lawrence's research was speech recognition technology, examining its history and its limitations. She was frequently cited as an expert on this topic.[4][5][6][7][8] She published a chapter, "Siri Disciplines," in the book Your Computer Is on Fire (2021),[9] which was excerpted in Engadget.[10] In this chapter, Lawrence argues that virtual assistants functionally discipline speakers into using a preferred, "standard" accent.[5]
While at Georgia Tech, Lawrence helped redesign and served as co-coordinator of a new program in computer science and technical communication.[3][11][2] Lawrence co-chaired the SIGDOC 2021 Conference with Liz Lane.[2] She won a 2022 CPTSC Research Grant to Promote Anti-racist Programs and Pedagogies.[12]
Lawrence died on October 29, 2023. As of November 2023, the journal Communication Design Quarterly is preparing a collection of essays commemorating her impact.[13]
