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 invertebrates, bull kelp, Dungeness crab, fisheries management, aquaculture, container ships, ocean grabbing, to food forest, and salmon habitat restoration. You can watch recordings of these presentations here. We celebrated our graduates’ accomplishments. Including outstanding research and the impact our students make on our communities. Our alumna, Amanda Fisher, a retired U.S. Coast Guard Commander, addressed our graduates and spoke of perseverance in conducting important marine and environmental work when the circumstances and institutional support are not only lacking, but sometimes even antagonistic. She spoke of the importance of finding and nourishing hope in our personal and professional networks.

Our alumni continue to do vital work in marine and environmental governance and management. While our training is interdisciplinary, some of our graduates assume research careers in very specific disciplinary fields, often defined by federal or state laws. In this review, we highlight a few types of cutting-edge research conducted by our graduates. We invited the contributors to join us in writing this piece to communicate the variety of research, ranging from the impact of new marine infrastructure on endangered species, to wetlands, public opinion, the impact of policies on fishing communities, and research supporting ESA and NEPA. You can read about their work and the advice they have for the incoming students here.  Also, in every newsletter, we share the alumni news and updates we receive. Please read them in this article written by Professor Emeritus Dave Fluharty, entitled “Washed in on the tide”. Last, but not least, Dave Fluharty summarizes the long career of Dan Tonnes at the point of his retirement from NOAA here.  With his retirement, SMEA is losing a strong NOAA liaison who made important strides to build NOAA career pathways on the West Coast. However, we hope Dan will continue to support our students and alumni in new ways.  

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 students’ work, totaling about $60,000. 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. Thank you! And, do plan to join us in May 2026 to see their capstone and thesis presentations.

We are also preparing for our largest incoming class (39 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. In addition, our alumni proposed seven capstone projects that offer invaluable learning opportunities to our incoming cohort. Thank you for your engagement and your help!

While our faculty and students remain positive and work hard to secure external research funding, the cuts in federal and state funding are already having an impact on our school. Our search for an assistant professor, which we were authorized to start in fall 2025, was paused. It is not clear when we will be able to resume it. We have been asked to implement a 3% cut in our general operating budget for fiscal year 2026. I am working with our faculty and staff to determine how we can do this in ways that impact our work the least. We are innovating in how we cover our administrative needs, sharing some resources with the Dean’s office. We are building our faculty expertise in ways that do not increase costs. This academic year, Dr. Kristin Hoelting joined us as an Affiliate Assistant Professor. In August 2025, Dr. Tom Mumford will join us as an Affiliate Professor. While not compensated, these and other SMEA affiliate faculty provide invaluable support in mentoring our students in capstone and thesis projects. Similarly, Professor Chris Anderson, SAFS, kindly agreed to serve as an Adjunct Professor in SMEA, importantly strengthening our expertise in fisheries management and statistical methods. Unfortunately, Professor Maya Tolstoy, the Dean of the College of the Environment, is leaving UW. You can read her reflections on her leadership here.

SMEA Director’s Council has also been active in building support for SMEA students and faculty. After organizing a successful 2023 SMEA community reception following the Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting in Seattle and supporting the 2024 annual campaign to raise funds for the SMEA Graduate Student Fellowship Fund, they are now working on the 2025 SMEA community event. This year, SMEA alumni, friends, students, and faculty will meet on the last day of the Pacific Marine Expo, November 22, 2025. Please hold the date and keep an eye on your email and SMEA social media for an RSVP.

We are immensely grateful to the SMEA community for your engagement, support, and philanthropy. Your contributions make it possible for our students to come to SMEA and work with our faculty and community partners on emerging environmental and social challenges in ways that acknowledge and address environmental equity and justice. 

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 and invite them into your professional networks, you read about our work and re-post our important accomplishments in your social networks, and many other ways.

Let me conclude with a big thank you to our alumni, donors, and friends from the community who continue to support our work. Your contributions play a vital role in our efforts to recruit excellent and diverse students and support our research. 

I wish you a wonderful summer and hope to see you at our events in the next academic year. And, of course, feel free to stop by for a chat and a cup of coffee or tea.

Nives Dolšak, Director