Lisa Matlock, new educator for the Maritime Refuge, is ready to take on the new school year.

Joining the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge staff as the new education specialist, Lisa Matlock brings with her a deep love for coastal Alaska and long-time experience working all over the state.  Lisa has educated children of all ages and the general public for the National Park Service, the USDA Forest Service, the University of Alaska system, and for private nature centers and eco-tourism companies for over fifteen years, most of that time in Alaska.

Lisa earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago and did graduate work at the University of Alaska Anchorage specializing in inter-disciplinary communications and nature writing.  Her passion is helping people of all ages be inspired by and better understand the resources of their public lands, nature, science, culture, and history.

Lisa has called Anchorage, Skagway, Gustavus, Seward, and Sitka all home during her time in the state.  For the past four years, she has been the education specialist at Sitka National Historical Park expanding an already successful elementary education program into secondary and college classrooms while highlighting the park’s natural, cultural, and historical resources.  She has also developed distance learning through web-based e-field trips and educational traveling trunks.  She is looking forward to building onto Alaska Maritime Refuge's already successful culture camps and existing educational programming and working with Refuge staff and partners.