SMEA Professor Cleo Woelfle-Erskine is part of a Simpson Center initiative for trans students, postdocs, staff, and faculty. The tri-campus online writing group for trans faculty, staff, and graduate students who work across the University of Washington system is part of the Imagining Trans Futures crossdisciplinary research group, funded by the Simpson Center. Whether working on a book, journal article, dissertation, or a creative project, this group will provide community and accountability for trans scholars in the UW system. 

Despite the COVID-19 disruption, 10 SMEA students took part in presenting their Capstone Project to the broader SMEA community and their clients via Zoom in mid-March, while 14 students delivered Thesis Presentations in early May or early June. Students were able to share their findings and learning with family, alumni, faculty, staff, and fellow students, gather feedback from those listening in, and had the opportunity to incorporate these takeaways in their final edition. 

Dr. P. Joshua Griffin joined SMEA as an Assistant Professor last fall, and also holds a position in the American Indian Studies department. Dr. Griffin, or Griff as he’s known around campus, holds a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies and Religious Studies from Dartmouth College. He then went onto earn a Master’s of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, and followed that with a Master’s in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of Washington. 

Dear Friends of SMEA,
Greetings. I trust all of you are in good health. As we begin the new academic year in a few days, I want to reflect on our accomplishments and vision for the future. The COVID outbreak and the pandemic of violence against Black people have raised important issues for our communities and have deeply influenced our teaching, research, and service. 

Securing equitable access to healthy environment, open space, and sustainably harvested natural resources, ensuring all voices are heard, and protecting the natural environment for future generations are among the core values that inform and motivate SMEA research, teaching, and outreach. SMEA faculty, staff, and students have all been interrogating ways in which the School might become more effective agents of change to answer the calls for social justice. 

Career News:
Danielle (Rioux) Blacklock ’09 was selected as the next director of NOAA Fisheries’
Office of Aquaculture. Danielle began her new post in mid-March, continuing her decade-long service to NOAA. Most recently, she was the Senior Policy Advisor for Aquaculture at NOAAA Fisheries. Danielle was kind enough to serve as one of the inaugural speakers for the SMEA Speakers Series, and offered a talk “Untapped Potential: Marine Aquaculture in the United States”. 

Recent SMEA Graduates Elise Lasky, Emily Buckner, and Henry Bell have been awarded the Washington Sea Grant Hershman Fellowship for 2020-2021. This fellowship places highly motivated, qualified individuals with marine and coastal host offices throughout Washington, providing fellows with a unique perspective on building marine policy and allowing them to share their academic expertise with the host offices.
This year’s host offices include the Washington State Department of Ecology, the Pacific Northwest Crab Research Group and the Port of Seattle. 

This Fall’s Graduate Climate Conference is being sponsored in part by the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs. The event, which is organized by graduate students for graduate students, is an interdisciplinary opportunity to examine climate change research and collaborate around various approaches to mitigation.
The conference is in its 14th year, and graduate students from hundreds of academic institutions are represented among the attendees. 

How did you decide to become a professor?

I don’t recall making a discrete decision to become a professor. I loved my undergraduate studies at UC Berkeley and benefited enormously from the mentorship of several faculty members there, particularly Paul Silva, John West, and GF Papenfuss. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to move on to graduate school, where I had wonderful experiences at the University of British Columbia and at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. 

Why did you decide to come to UW’s SMEA for graduate school?
I studied biology as an undergraduate, but it wasn’t until I took a conservation biology class that I began to understand how important the human dimension aspect of climate science is. Following this class, I traveled to Cambodia as part of a research project focusing on food web ecology and fisheries in the Mekong.