Amy Giannotti, M.S., C.L.M.

Amy Giannotti is the founder of AquaSTEM Consulting, LLC – an environmental consulting company specializing in aquatic plant and lake management, aquatic habitat restoration, and STEM outreach initiatives. Amy is a Certified Lake Manager and has over 20 years of experience working in temperate and subtropical marine and freshwater systems, including coastal and freshwater vegetation dynamics, exotic species management, impacts of nutrient enrichment and remediation efforts, stormwater management and watershed hydrology, and public speaking on environmental issues affecting lakes, springs, and karst community ecology.

For the last 15+ years, much of Amy’s daily work has focused on the technical aspects of habitat management in central Florida waters – with her most recent roles as Lakes Division Manager with the City of Winter Park and as Regional Biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Invasive Plant Management Section. For the last several years, Amy has supervised the lake management and stormwater field operations for the City of Winter Park, Florida. These duties included managing the control of invasive species, field operations for NPDES compliance, fisheries habitat management, water quality monitoring, shoreline permitting/enforcement/and compliance, and educational outreach initiatives. 

Amy also serves as the Director of Development for Schoolyard Films, a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to making high-end environmental and nature films for K-12 youth.  These award-winning films are available for free, come with study guides that align to state and national science standards, are available in other languages, and are captioned for visually and hearing-impaired youth.

She has also had the unique opportunity to lead conservation initiatives here in the United States and in several other countries of Central America and the Caribbean. From 2004 to 2019, Amy served as president of the Cambrian Foundation, a 501c3 organization, and led scientific expeditions in Bermuda, Mexico, and Florida that promoted the preservation and protection of critical cave and karst environments, historic shipwrecks, and implemented expedition participation programs for students and teachers in the United States and abroad. These expeditions required complex logistical coordination related to scientific/cave diving, sampling, fundraising, and liaising with international government agencies, schools, and local interest groups.

Amy currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants at the University of Florida, and she has designed and developed curricular programs for elementary, middle, and high school students emphasizing the threats to Florida waters from exotic species. She is an officer with the Aquatic Plant Management Society, serves on the Board of Directors of the Florida Aquatic Plant Management Society, and is the editor of the Society’s journal Aquatics. Amy is a mentor for the University of Central Florida’s STEM Program and is an invited seminar presenter at many technical conferences and symposia.

Amy holds a B.S. in biology from Marietta College (Ohio), and earned her M.S. in environmental science from the University of Virginia, with a specialty in marine ecology. Her professional affiliations include the Aquatic Plant Management Society, Florida Aquatic Plant Management Society, Florida Lake Management Society, North American Lake Management Society, Florida Marine Science Educators Association, and the Boston Sea Rovers. Amy is a certified scuba diver (open water, EANx, and cavern diver), airboat pilot, outboard motor operator, and a licensed aquatics herbicide applicator in Florida.