SMEA graduate students Megan Desillier, Seth Sivinski, and Nicole White recently completed a year long capstone project in which they worked with the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation (ITOPF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Office of Response and Restoration to understand how the world’s shipping dynamic has changed in recent years and how these emerging challenges in marine transportation will affect that dynamic. 

SMEA graduate student Jessica Hernandez recently organized a college immersion day for students from Chief Kitsap Academy. Chief Kitsap Academy is a tribal school with a program that is committed to the Suquamish Tribe’s mission of providing education that supports lifelong learning by respecting diversity and ancestral heritage through the acquisition of foundational knowledge, leadership, accountability, and critical thinking skills; providing students opportunities to acquire and practice leadership skills, integrity, honesty, teamwork, compassion, and communication skills. 

Congratulations to Brian Tracey for being part of the first cohort of students who make up the Husky 100!
The Husky 100 recognizes 100 UW undergraduate and graduate students from Bothell, Seattle and Tacoma in all areas of study who are making the most of their time at the UW. Through the Husky Experience, students discover their passions in life and work. 

Congratulations to SMEA students Maggie Allen and Hannah Russell! Maggie Allen won best graduate student presentation for her talk, “Stronger Together: The Cross-Cultural Coalition to Stop Fossil Fuel Exports in the Salish Sea”, which she presented at the 2016 Salish Sea Ecosystem conference in Vancouver, BC. Student judging was conducted by 140 judges of 85 student presentations. Hannah Russell was awarded the Graduate School Boeing International Fellowship for international study or research for the 2016–2017 academic year. 

SMEA second year students Maggie Allen and Danielle Holstein attended and presented at the International Congress for Conservation Biology in Montpellier, France this past August. 

SMEA students Lindsay Gordon and Grace Ferrara recently returned from a 3-day ‘think-tank’ in Honolulu, Hawaii where they focused on the Human Dimensions of Large-Scale Marine Protected Areas. This think-tank was hosted by large-scale marine protected area network Big Ocean and SMEA professor Patrick Christie along with other contributing organizations and sponsors such as National Geographic, NOAA, Conservation International, and Pew Charitable Trusts. 

The School of Marine and Environmental Affairs had a strong showing at this year’s Arctic Encounter Symposium, a yearly meeting hosted at the University of Washington’s Law School. Students and faculty were speakers, moderators, representatives of consulting firms, as well as there to just learn as much as possible from the diverse gathering. 

SMEA faculty and students have been out and about this fall quarter!
During the last week of October, SMEA Director Terrie Klinger, Professor Eddie Allison, Post-doctoral Researcher Nina Bednaršek and SMEA Graduate Student Hannah Bassett attended the IMBIZO IV conference in Trieste, Italy. The theme of IMBIZO IV was Marine and Human Systems: Addressing multiple scales and multiple stressors. Bassett presented a talk entitled “A Framework of Frameworks: Assessing existing tools for implementation of Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management (EBFM)”.  

This past weekend SMEA was invited to participate in the Seattle Aquarium’s Discover Science Weekend, a wonderful opportunity for the public to get a chance to interact with scientists and researchers from organizations all across the Puget Sound. 

SMEA Professor Eddie Allison and graduate student Hannah Bassett co-authored a paper titled “Climate change in the oceans: Human impacts and responses” that was recently published in Science. The paper was part of a special issue of Science dedicated to informing the upcoming COP21 meeting in Paris. As an article from UW Today explains, the paper “looks at scientific understanding of changes to the world’s oceans and how people around the world are responding to those changes.