Lisa-ann Gershwin

Lisa-ann Gershwin is an American-Australian marine biologist and one of the world's leading experts on jellyfish (aka sea jellies or jellies). She has discovered over two hundred new species of jellyfish.

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Quotes

Jellyfish blooms are nothing new. In fact, fossil evidence shows us that jellyfish have been blooming for hundreds of millions of years. Around the turn of the nineteenth century, it became fashionable for naturalists to report all sorts of odd and unusual events from the natural world. The early issues of the journal Nature and others like it are full of such interesting tidbits. One such report described Aurelia as so abundant in Kiel Bay, Germany, that an oar pushed down between the jellyfish remained standing upright (Möbius 1880). Today, just about any bay or harbor has Aurelia shoals so dense that one may wonder whether there is actually enough water between each jellyfish for it to obtain enough oxygen to survive.
- Stung!: On Jellyfish Blooms and the Future of the Ocean. University of Chicago Press. 2013. p. 12. ISBN 9780226020105. (454 pages; with a foreword by Sylvia Earle)

Jellyfish as a group holds some astonishing records. The world's most venomous animal is a jellyfish, the Australian Deadly Box jelly-fish (Chironex fleckeri, page 50). The largest invertebrate discovered in the twentieth century is a jellyfish, the so-called Black Sea Nettle (Chrysaora achlyos, page 114)—thought it is practically a toy compared to the lion's mane jellies of the North Atlanta (Cyanea spp., page 52), which can reach three meters (ten feet) across the body and drag tentacles nearly 30 meters (100 feet) long. One jellyfish helped scientists win the Nobel Prize (page 198). Another grows ten percent of its body length per hour (page 208). And the world's first known case of true biological immortality was discovered in the diminutive and aptly named Immortal Jellyfish (Turritopsis dohrnii, page 74).
- Jellyfish: A Natural History. University of Chicago Press. 2016. p. 6. ISBN 9780226287706. (224 pages)

Imagine one of Australia’s foremost jellyfish specialists, a robust scientist with an encyclopaedic knowledge of jellyfish taxonomy and a deep understanding of their place in the marine environment. Now make them enthusiastic, unashamedly autistic and female. This is Lisa-Ann Gershwin. Dr Gershwin this year was named one of The Science Show's Top 100 Australian Scientists, along with greats such as Sir Mark Oliphant FRS, Sir Douglas Mawson FRS, and Professor Frank Fenner FRS. Her road to science has not been a smooth one though. ...
Lisa-Ann describes her neurodivergence as central to her science and who she is. While it has been a source of joy as she has been able to immerse herself in the details of jellyfish taxonomy and ecology, it has also come with difficulties.
- Simone Cuff, Against the current: Dr Lisa-Ann Gershwin’s path to science. The Royal Society Blog (royalsociety.org/blog) (10 December 2024).