By Maggie Allen
The Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship is a unique, unparalleled experience for SMEA graduates. The exciting year began for me in December 2016 during Placement Week, which consisted of 12-15 interviews in 3 days and 4 networking happy hours across D.C. Although it was probably one of the most hectic weeks in my life, it was also extremely invaluable. 

A new paper authored by SMEA alum Britta Timpane-Padgham, and SMEA Professor Terrie Klinger aims to provide clarity among scientists, resource managers and planners on what ecological resilience means and how it can be achieved. The study, published this month in the journal PLOS ONE, is the first to examine the topic in the context of ecological restoration and identify ways that resilience can be measured and achieved at different scales.  

Congratulations to SMEA alumni Hilary Polis (’16) and SMEA Postdoc Stacia Dryer for their recent article published in Ecological Economics. Their article “Public Willingness to Pay and Policy Preferences for Tidal Energy Research and Development: A Study of Households in Washington State” looks at the Puget Sound area in Washington State, which has significant tidal energy resources, but a ways to go to develop the industry. 

Congratulations to SMEA postdoc Jimmy O’Donnell for leading his new paper “Spatial distribution of environmental DNA in a nearshore marine habitat” to publication! Additional authors include SMEA Assistant Professor Ryan Kelly, SMEA alumna Natalie Lowell, and collaborators Jameal Samhouri, Ole Shelton, and Greg Williams. The paper shows that environmental DNA in the nearshore marine environment (in this case Carkeek Park in north Seattle) does not travel very far at all, such that eDNA samples show a very local snapshot of marine biodiversity. 

SMEA Alum Barbara Clabots recently authored a report for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) titled, “Gender and biodiversity: Analysis of women and gender equality considerations in National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs).” The report examines how women and gender equality considerations are included in National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), the principal mechanisms for implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the national level. 

Congratulations to SMEA graduate Annie Hillier and SMEA professors Ryan Kelly and Terrie Klinger! Their article “Narrative Style Influences Citation Frequency in Climate Change Science” published December 15 in the journal PLOS ONE, looked at the abstracts from more than 700 scientific papers about climate change to find out what makes a paper influential in its field. Rather than focusing on content, they looked at writing style.  

SMEA Professor Nives Dolšak, along with UW Professor Aseem Prakash, and SMEA alum Maggie Allen wrote a piece recently featured in The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog about the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The posting discusses how the the federal government’s decision to  temporarily block construction of the DAPL, the pipeline that was supposed to carry 570,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the Dakotas to Illinois, is the result of a new kind of environmental activism that treats energy pipelines as a chokepoint for activities that contribute to global warming, and builds alliances with other groups to stop them. 

Congratulations to SMEA Assistant Professor Ryan Kelly, the lead author of the recently published paper “Genetic signatures of ecological diversity along an urbanization gradient.” Kelly and his co-authors, which include SMEA Post-doc Jimmy O’Donnell and SMEA Alum Natalie Lowell, used environmental DNA — or eDNA, and found that urban Puget Sound shorelines support a denser array of animals than in remote areas. 

Alumni from the Institute for Marine Studies (IMS) and School of Marine Affairs (SMA), which are now the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, recently came together on behalf of The Puget Sound Nearshore Ecosystem Restoration Project (PSNERP). PSNERP endeavors to restore shorelines throughout Puget Sound. The group traveled to Washington D.C. for a Army Corps Civil Works Review Board (CWRB), a required step before a budget to fund the program can be submitted to Congress.  

Congratulations to Professor Nives Dolšak and SMEA Alum Sophia Amberson on their latest publications!
Dolšak’s paper titled “Factors impacting investments in energy efficiency and clean technologies: Empirical evidence from Slovenian manufacturing firms” examines factors impacting firms’ decisions to invest in energy efficiency and clean technologies. Based on the paper’s findings, it can be concluded that the energy efficiency gap is less likely to exist in large and well-performing firms, implying that policy measures should primarily target less energy intensive, small and medium-sized enterprises.