Lisa Park Boush

Lisa Park Boush is a Professor of Geosciences at the University of Connecticut, specializing in paleoclimatology and environmental change. She holds a Ph.D. in Geosciences from the University of Arizona and a B.A. in Geology from The College of Wooster. Her primary research focuses on reconstructing past climate histories through lacustrine and coastal records, with extensive fieldwork in the Bahamas and Lake Tanganyika. She is a key figure in the Lake Tanganyika Drilling Project, aiming to recover an 8-million-year climate record from Africa’s oldest lake. Her work integrates ostracod paleontology, sedimentology, and geochemistry to address questions about anthropogenic and natural environmental shifts. Courses taught include ERTH 5000 (Professional Development) and ERTH 2050W (Earth and Environmental Science Communication).

Her research spans topics such as the 'estuary effect'—examining how marine organisms invaded continental ecosystems—hurricane impact on coastal systems, and the Triassic-Jurassic boundary crisis. Recent projects include high-resolution records of Caribbean climate variability and the ecological response of ostracods to lake level changes. She has led NSF-funded initiatives like the Dinodrill Project and collaborates internationally on paleoenvironmental reconstructions.

Notably, her work in the Bahamas involves analyzing hurricane-induced sedimentation and prehistoric human adaptation to environmental changes. She also explores taphonomic processes in blue holes and the role of biodiversity conservation through paleoecological baselines. Her lab emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches, combining fieldwork, lab analysis, and computational modeling.