He was among the group at NEC Research which was responsible for the creation of the Search Engine/Digital Library CiteSeer.
Lawrence received Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Engineering degrees from Queensland University of Technology in Australia, and his PhD from the University of Queensland in Australia.
[citation needed] Lawrence's research interests include information retrieval, digital libraries, and machine learning.
He has published over 50 papers in these areas, including articles in Science, Nature, CACM, and IEEE Computer.
He has been interviewed by over 100 news organizations including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reuters, Associated Press, CNN, MSNBC, the BBC, and NPR.