Smith Scholar Spotlight

Maj. Lisa Snyder, M.D.

Maj. Lisa Snyder, M.D. shaped her career as an undergraduate at Old Dominion University. The Portsmouth resident worked as a cardiac technician on ambulances and as a 911 dispatcher to pay for college. She continued both jobs while studying at Eastern Virginia Medical School. Snyder’s part-time jobs propelled her toward a specialty in emergency medicine after graduating from EVMS in 1999. In 2006 Snyder was named chief of aerospace medicine for the Air National Guard for the United States.

“My mom was a school secretary and was unable to help me pay for college,” says Snyder, who was the first person in her immediate family to earn a college degree. Having a Florence L. Smith Medical Scholarship helped ease the burden of paying for medical school.

Snyder’s career has taken her to areas “I never dreamed I could be,” she says. She moved to Indiana for a toxicology fellowship and stayed five years as a SWAT team physician for the FBI and Indiana state police. She practiced raceway medicine at the Indianapolis Speedway Park, staffed an emergency helicopter and joined the Air National Guard as a flight surgeon based in San Antonio. Snyder has been deployed to Okinawa and Iraq and done volunteer work in Guatemala. She now lives in Alexandria.