Lisa Greer to Deliver Lecture in Honor of Her Appointment to the Harry E. and Mary Jayne W. Redenbaugh Term Professorship Greer’s talk, “Coral Reefs Past, Present and Future and Our Human Footprint,” will be held Jan. 15 in Science Addition 214.

By Brian Laubscher
January 6, 2025

Lisa Greer, professor of earth and environmental geoscience at Washington and Lee University, will present a public lecture to mark her appointment to the Harry E. and Mary Jayne W. Redenbaugh Term Professorship at W&L.

Greer’s lecture, “Coral Reefs Past, Present and Future and Our Human Footprint,” will be held at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 15, in Science Addition 214. The talk is free and open to the public.

Greer’s discussion will center around the rapid decline of coral reefs, providing context for the current state of many reefs by exploring the recent past and potential future of Caribbean corals. She has been visiting Belize biannually since 2011 to monitor the health and analyze environmental data from a reef known as Coral Gardens. Greer will share her research on the site and the artistic expression (the human footprint) of microplastics and macroplastics she has found there.

“Each of us leaves a mark and our human footprint is distinct from the geologic past,” said Greer. “This is particularly evident in the marine environment. Corals survived environmental changes for hundreds of thousands of years, yet the future of some species is now uncertain. I’ll share the story of Coral Gardens, once a refuge for an endangered coral species and now a marine laboratory for studying geologic processes in real time. We will discuss our increasing influence over an environment that is now distinctly different from the geologic past. It can be hard to find hope amid a global coral crisis, but thinking like a geologist is one way of coping with our realities.”

Greer first joined the W&L faculty in 2003 as an assistant professor. She was promoted to associate professor in 2009 and full professor in 2015. She is also a core faculty member of the environmental studies program. Greer holds a Bachelor of Arts in geology from Colorado College and a Ph.D. in marine geology and geophysics from the University of Miami.

The Harry E. and Mary Jayne W. Redenbaugh Term Professorship, established in 2008 by Mary Jayne Redenbaugh in honor and memory of Harry E. Redenbaugh, Class of 1939A, is a permanently endowed fund providing support for a faculty member without regard to department in the College or the Williams School. This award recognizes a professor for a fixed term, normally three years, and is administered by the Provost or a designee in consultation with the appropriate academic deans.