En Garde! 

Lisa Wolf, PhD, is an associate professor at the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing and the director of the Institute for Emergency Nursing Research. In her nursing work, she fights the good fight through her research into how to make emergency environments safer for patients and nurses. Outside of her nursing role, her fighting spirit expresses itself on the fencing strip. Wolf qualified for the 2025 Veteran Fencing World Championships in Manama, Bahrain—her second time in the world championships. Here’s what she has to say about her two passions.

I was a smart kid on Long Island in the ’80s, and medicine seemed like a logical career. I had an opportunity to shadow a physician as part of the Exploring program from the Boy Scouts of America [now Scouting America], but it made me realize that being a physician was not going to give me the opportunity to engage in patient care in the way I wanted, so I ended up as a double major in anthropology and medieval English literature at Amherst College. Years later, after college and my first stint in graduate school, I worked at a women’s health clinic doing reproductive care counseling and abortion care. Those nurses were aspirational in their way of combining clinical expertise with profound empathy and compassion. That’s what I wanted to be.

My path to becoming an educator started in nursing school. It was back in the day when only about half the class would graduate—it was so difficult. I decided we’d band together and tutor each other. Everyone graduated, so I guess I found out that teaching was something I was good at.

My strategy on the strip aligns well with my emergency nursing background.

My research focus on emergency nursing came about because I like adrenaline and I like fixing problems. Emergency department problems are a microcosm of societal problems with health-care access, disparities, violence, and infectious disease.  

I first discovered fencing when a flyer came home in my kindergartener’s backpack. I was in the middle of my PhD. I took the introductory class and got hooked, but then I had to wait until I defended my dissertation a couple of years later to really put time into it. 

Competing on the national stage, frankly, is terrifying. All the collaboration, coaching, and support from your clubmates happens before you step onto the strip, and then it’s just you and your opponent and who’s better that day. For me, the biggest struggle was in learning how to compete with a level head and not to let a single defeat early on wreck the rest of the day. Emotional regulation was a skill I transferred from my emergency nursing work.

My strategy on the strip aligns well with my emergency nursing background. I want to see or create an opportunity and take advantage of it rather than wait for something to happen. This is my general attitude, and how I encourage my nursing and fencing students to view themselves: as active agents in their own practice.