Laws majored in physics, with a minor in mathematics, at Reed College, graduating in 1961.
[3] In 1993, Laws shared the Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievement in Education with Ronald K. Thornton, for their development of the Workshop Physics program.
[4] In 2010, she and University of Oregon professor David Sokoloff won the APS Excellence in Physics Education Award, for their work with the Activity Based Physics Group, "for twenty-three years of national and international leadership in the design, testing, validation, and dissemination of research-based introductory physics curricula, computer tools and apparatus that engage students in active learning based on the observation and analysis of real phenomena".
[3] Laws was the 1996 winner of the Robert A. Millikan Medal of the American Association of Physics Teachers.
[5] She was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2003, after a nomination from the APS Forum on Education, "for her numerous contributions to physics education and for her development of data collecting computer tools and methods to use them efficiently".