Log into Twitter on a Sunday and search for #SundayFishSketch; you’ll find a plethora of illustrations of fishes and other marine species. These illustrations are submitted by scientists, artists and anyone else inspired to create, from all over the world. One of these contributors is 1st year School of Marine & Environmental Affairs (SMEA) graduate student Spencer Showalter. Showalter said “My sophomore year [at Boston University], I traveled to Belize for a research class, and part of the assignment was to keep a field journal and draw a ridiculous number of fishes. 

500 million single-use plastic straws are used in the US everyday. Many organizations across the country have been working for years to raise awareness about the impacts of single-use plastic straws on the environment. This year Seattle hosted the first city-wide campaign, called Strawless in Seattle, to help remove single-use plastic straws from the US waste stream. Here at SMEA the Student Environmental Affairs Society (SEAS) and Currents Blog Teams joined forces to sponsor #StrawlessSMEA; a challenge to SMEA students and faculty to say NO! 

SMEA graduate students Kaitlin Lebon and Katie Keil each contributed pieces to a series for the student blog Currents illustrating researchers’ experiences at sea. Lebon’s piece takes an inside look at field science in the Arctic through Kylie Welch— a Faculty Research Assistant with the Goñi Lab at Oregon State University. Keil’s piece describes her own experiences on the University of Washington’s R/V Clifford A Barnes to collect water chemistry parameters, various plankton samples, and krill. 

Written by Katie Keil
Although my summer was already comically overbooked with a month-long summer course at Friday Harbor Labs, two nine day research cruises for my thesis, and a trip back home, when Dr. Tim Billo invited me to join him in teaching a backpacking course, I couldn’t say “yes” fast enough. I rescheduled my flight home, and started preparations for ENVIR 495C, Landscape Changes in the Pacific Northwest – an interdisciplinary ecology and environmental philosophy course taught through the lens of a 9-day backpacking trip in Olympic National Park. 

Written by Allie Sifrit
Hello all!
My name is Allie Sifrit and I am just starting my second year at SMEA! However, I will actually be in Indonesia for the beginning of the school year! I am currently collecting data for my thesis. My research is on the stakeholder perceptions of compliance to marine protected area regulations in Maluku, Indonesia. I am working alongside a project from USAID called the Sustainable Ecosystems Advanced Project and the director of this project is one of SMEA’s affiliate faculty members: Dr. 

Congratulations to recent SMEA grads and students Sara Brostrom, Haley Kennard and Marisa Nixon who were all awarded Marc Hershman Marine Policy Fellowships! Hershman fellows are teamed with mentors in state government or an NGO host office in Olympia, Tacoma or Seattle, working on ocean and coastal science and management issues for one year. This year’s host offices are The Nature Conservancy, Makah Office of Tribal Affairs and Washington State Departments of Ecology and Health. 

Written by Charlene Vasquez
I have spent my summer in Honolulu, Hawai’i as a NOAA Pathways Intern. The purpose of my internship was to write a draft of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument Ecosystem Science Plan. There was a draft written in 2011, but a lot changes in 6 years, so it needed to be updated. It also needed to be reorganized and a lot of sections rewritten. 

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) announced the winners of the latest round of its scholarship program, which provides funding of up to £4,000 to support research that looks at environmental improvement, supply chain management or best practice in fisheries management. The two winners, SMEA graduate student Lily Zhao and Timothy Munyikana Kakai from Pwani University, Kenya were selected from a record 70 applications from 30 countries. 

By Danielle Edelman
The freshly-minted SMEA class of 2017 is incredibly diverse, and their plans for the future reflect the incredible pool of talent they represent. Two recent grads share their post-SMEA destinations. 

Grace Ferrara
Grace has worked for the National Marine Fisheries Service since Summer 2016. She has recently been selected for the prestigious Knauss Fellowship in Washington, D.C., which begins in February of next year. 

A big congratulations to recent SMEA graduates Grace Ferrara, Jimmy Kralj, and Carrie Schmaus who were selected as Washington Sea Grant’s John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellows for 2017-18.
The Sea Grant Knauss Fellowship provides a unique educational and professional experience to graduate students who have an interest in ocean, coastal and Great Lakes resources and in the national policy decisions affecting those resources.