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.  

Congratulations to SMEA first year Kanae Komaki, who was accepted by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) to do a policy internship this summer in Kingston, Jamaica!
The ISA is an international organization under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to manage seabed and subsoil in the high seas and the areas beyond the continental shelf. During her internship, Kanae will be working with the ISA’s Secretariat (Office of Environmental Management and Mineral Resources, and Office of Legal Affairs) during the ISA’s Legal & Technical Commission Meeting and the 23rd General Assembly.  

SMEA graduate student Jessica Hernandez was recently featured on the UW’s Race & Equity Initiative blog. The piece titled New Course Shines Light on Environmental (In)Justice highlighted a course Hernandez developed along with Isabel Carrera, another masters student in the College of the Environment. The class “Decolonizing the Environmental Discourse” was offered winter quarter and examined environmental injustice from the point of view of decolonization, exploring the perspectives of the people and communities most affected by environmental practices, policies and hazards.  

Five SMEA students were awarded Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships from the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies; Valerie Cleland, Thao Huynh, Brandon Ray, Karen Villeda and Lily Zhao.
Valerie Cleland, first year Masters student, was awarded a FLAS award for the academic year through the Canadian Studies Department. She will be studying Inuktitut- the Inuit language of the Canadian Arctic. 

By Amy Brodbeck
‘Awesome’…’Jargon’…’Awesome’!
A couple of weekends ago, I held signs with these words to provide feedback for my peers as they practiced their one-minute ‘elevator’ speeches about their research. As one of forty graduate students who participated in the two-day science communication conference called ComSciCon PNW, I left feeling truly empowered to increase the role of science in public discourse.