Dear SMEA friends! 

Greetings from SMEA. We had an exciting spring with presentations of outstanding capstone projects and thesis research, from the sea to the land, from Dungeness crab, fisheries management, ship strike hazards, to subsistence food production, offshore wind, to education, critical mineral mining, labor rights, and climate change policy implementation. You can watch recordings of these presentations here. We celebrated our graduates’ accomplishments, including outstanding thesis research and the impact our students make on our communities. Our Emerita Professor, Terrie Klinger, addressed our graduates as they embarked on their new careers.  

Our alumni continue to do vital work in marine and environmental governance and management. I encourage you to read the piece by Professor Emeritus Dave Fluharty entitled “Washed in on the tide.” I am sure there are many more exciting alumni updates that escaped our radar. Please do send those to Hailie Borges, Assistant to the Director, to be shared with our community in our newsletters and on social media. You will also enjoy the interview with our Alumna, Tanya Pelach (’21) by Hailie Borges in the “Alumni Spotlight” section. 

The faculty are concluding a busy academic year. We appointed a new Assistant Professor, Dr. Shana Hirsch, who will be joining us in September. Please read about her work and the new expertise she brings to SMEA here. In the Winter 2026 quarter, our new Professor of Practice, Stephen Metruck, and Professor Emeritus Dave Fluharty offered an outstanding speaker series entitled “Building a Port for the Future”. It was wonderful to hear from esteemed leaders, such as Commissioner Toshiko Hasegawa, and Captain Mark McDonnell, Sector Commander, U.S. Coast Guard Puget Sound, as well as many SMEA alumni working at Port of Seattle. This year, SMEA faculty also made important progress in implementing our strategic development plan by designing an initial proposal for a new one-year graduate degree in Environmental Management. Associate Professor Anne Beaudreau was instrumental in this effort, and she will continue leading this process through the university review and approval in the upcoming academic year. 

Our activities have now shifted to the summer schedule of research and administrative work preparing for a new academic and fiscal year. Faculty and rising second-year students are in the field, conducting research. Thanks to the generosity of SMEA alumni and friends like you, we will be able to provide partial funding to support the completion of our second-year students’ work, totaling nearly $70,000. Your support is always important, but it has become essential now when so many other sources of state and federal funding have been cut or eliminated. If you are able to make a gift at this point, you can do so here. Thank you!  

We are also preparing for our largest incoming class (42 admitted applicants are scheduled to join us in September). Again, your support is vital. Thanks to your generosity, we were able to combine your donations with the funding from the UW Graduate Schools and the College of the Environment to offer three incoming students one year of full funding (tuition and stipend). This is a vital tool for our recruitment of outstanding applicants who often have offers of funding from our peer institutions.  

While your donations are vital for strengthening SMEA’s ability to educate future leaders in marine and environmental affairs, our alumni and friends have been supporting our students and their learning in many other ways. You partner with us in developing capstone projects, you return to SMEA to talk to current students about your careers in marine and environmental fields, you mentor them as they build their networks, you read about our work and re-post our important accomplishments in your social networks, and help SMEA in many other ways.  

Allow me to end this letter on a personal note. After 24 purple years, I am leaving UW to join Georgetown University. My time at UW has been one of great joy and professional growth. I am grateful for all opportunities provided to me by the University and the College of the Environment. I want to thank Dean Thornton and his entire office for their commitment to our school, the work we do, and the wellbeing of our students, staff, and faculty. I want to thank my colleagues, faculty and staff at SMEA, who work very hard and very collegially. During my two terms as the SMEA director, we were able to hire three tenure track faculty and appoint two professors of practice, bringing vital new expertise in marine and coastal affairs to UW. In recognition of their professional contributions, we also promoted three faculty. And all of that through a difficult time of the overhaul of the UW financial and HR system, global pandemic, significant federal research funding decline, and state budget cuts.  

I want to express deep gratitude to SMEA Director’s Council, a determined group of SMEA alumni and supporters, led by Dan Hull, who saw my vision for the school and trusted my ability to deliver. Thank you for joining the council and for your unstinting support. Because of your generosity and hard work, SMEA has new resources to recruit outstanding applicants, new resources to support the research of students in their second year, a new faculty fellowship, a regular biennial community meeting, and an active alumni network. 

I wish you all a wonderful summer. Please be on the lookout for an announcement from Dean Joel Thornton about SMEA’s new Director in July.  

Nives Dolšak, Outgoing Director