LIZA WILSON DURANT

Liza Wilson Durant is determined to help Arlington be counted among the nation’s top technology innovation hubs.

She has played a pivotal role in the development and ongoing expansion of George Mason University’s Arlington campus and the vision for FUSE at Mason Square, a building scheduled to open by summer 2024 that will support research, instruction and collaboration in digital innovation.

Durant also directs the Northern Virginia Node of the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative, a state-funded public-private partnership program established in 2018 to spur statewide research, innovation and workforce development in cybersecurity. Additionally, she chairs the Arlington Chamber of Commerce’s Education and Workforce Development Committee.

Durant, who earned her doctorate in environmental engineering, thrives when she solves real world challenges and empowers the next generation of engineers.

“We need to ensure women and others who are underrepresented in STEM fields have pathways to participate and achieve in STEM, so we can continue to innovate and develop the impactful disruptive technical solutions of the future,” she says.

On Thursday evenings, you can usually find Durant riding in the back of an ambulance. She works 12-hour overnight shifts as a volunteer licensed emergency medical technician, and she was named Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad’s 2022 EMT of the Year.

Read more about the 2023 class of Virginia Business Women in Leadership Award winners.