Lisa Wu
Lisa Lyle Wu serves as Water Quality Lab Manager aboard the Potomac Riverkeeper Network’s, M/V Sea Dog, anchored at National Harbor in Maryland. She organizes and trains area volunteers as community scientists. Her lab’s water quality analysis is disseminated through SwimGuide and the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative, providing data to enhance safe recreational activities along the Potomac. This training and water analysis involves communicating science to the public and community outreach. Most recently, her lab work was aired on BBC’s World’s Most Scenic River Journeys.
Appointed by the Governor to the Board of Trustees for the Virginia Museum of Natural History, she collaborated with a variety of sectors around the Commonwealth to ensure the growth and expansion of the museum. Lisa has enjoyed free-lance consulting and writing for the Washington Post Newspaper In Education, has developed curricular materials for Discovery Channel and PBS News Hour, and developed exhibits for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. Lisa was a volunteer diver at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, served as Teacher at Sea for NOAA, and is a member of the Corps of Exploration for the E/V Nautilus. Most recent field studies included Wakatobi National Park in Indonesia and the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with Operation Wallacea.
Research interests stem from her past life, when she taught marine biology and was the lab director for the Oceanography & Geophysical Systems Lab at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, VA. In her lab, she facilitated authentic research with students and scientists from the military, Federal and State agencies, university labs, and museums. Her current research interests include bioluminescence, HABs, oysters, remote sensing, improving our coastal and freshwater environments, and promoting women in STEM. She has initiated novel unmanned surface vehicles and sensors to detect and map E. coli, contamination by underwater ordnance, and facilitate filtering shellfish habitats in the Potomac watershed and beyond.
A certified ecotour guide, with a love of field and lab work, she thrives in maritime environments, research cruises, and exploring the vibrant coastal communities of the Delmarva peninsula. To maintain an even keel (most days) she enjoys living on the edge (of the water). She splits her time between metropolitan DC and the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
