Laurie was born in 1919[1] to parents Elinor Beatrice Ord and Robert Douglas Laurie. Her father was head of the Zoology Department at Aberystwyth University from 1918 until his retirement in 1940.[2]
Laurie was the head of the Mammal Department at the British Museum of Natural History.[1]
She graduated from St Hugh's College, Oxford in 1942 with a Master of Science degree.
In its 1949–1950 issue, the St Hugh's College Chronicle noted that she was appointed Senior Scientific Officer at the British Museum in its Zoology Department.[3]
She became a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London in 1950;[4] she withdrew from the Society in 1958.[5]
Southern, H. N.; Laurie, E. M. O. (1946). "The House-Mouse (Mus musculus) in Corn Ricks". The Journal of Animal Ecology. 15 (2): 134. doi:10.2307/1554. JSTOR1554.
Laurie, E. M. O. (1946). "The Coypu (Myocastor coypus) in Great Britain". The Journal of Animal Ecology. 15 (1): 22–34. doi:10.2307/1622. JSTOR1622.
In 2009, Helgen and Helgen named a new species of mouse after Laurie, Pseudohydromys eleanorae, recommending the common name of Laurie's moss mouse.[1]
^"PROCEEDINGS OF THE GENERAL MEETING ON 9 March 1950". Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London. 162 (2): 123–124. 1951. doi:10.1111/j.1095-8312.1951.tb00602.x.