Lisa Ernst is a sixth-grade Science/Humanities teacher at Alice Fong Yu Alternative School, the nation's first Chinese immersion public, in San Francisco, California. She has over thirty years of classroom teaching experience employing a multidisciplinary and project based approach to teaching STEM or STEAM. She received the Sylvia Shugrue Award from the National Science Teachers Association in recognition of her interdisciplinary, inquiry-based lesson plans. Along with this award, she was also awarded the 2020 STEAM Teachers of the Year, from RAFT Awardee. She has also been a member of the NSTA Multicultural/Equity Committee.​

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Within the school year, Lisa served as a Co-Developer with SFUSD, Stanford, and SERP, (Strategic Educational Research Partnership) with an emphasis on Science Literacy. She was selected as a Wipro Fellow at Stanford for 2022-2024, as well as a Fellow with Pilot Light Chef, which is aligned to Food Education/Food Network.

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During the summers and weekends, she continues to participate and enhance her knowledge in Science through fellowships from the Department of Energy, Yale, to workshops from Chabot Space and Science Center to the Exploratorium. Through the participation of various science programs, Lisa has developed a curriculum that has become funded through grants and has been presented through various venues. In March of 2012, Lisa served as a Judge for the Disney Planet Challenge competition. In 2010, Lisa was asked by NSTA to present and attend the SINO-US Science Conference in Shanghai, China where she shared instructional strategies that were designed within SERP.

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Through the lens of Humanities, she presently serves as a KQED Media Literacy Innovator. Within this program, she and her students have participated in Media Challenges using infographic posters, blogs as well as a podcast. Lisa’s commitment to educating her students, also aligns to the 1990 Teacher Institute. As a participant of the program and integrating the information from the workshops, she has been an active contributor to the Institute. Some of her previous students at Alice Fong Yu were participants of the Youth Voice Challenges. This

enabled the students to connect to their Asian Culture and Language.