This week is National Postdoc Appreciation Week and at SMEA we are fortunate to have 3 awesome postdocs; Nathan Bennett, Stacia Dreyer, and Jimmy O’Donnell.
Whether they’re conducting research, publishing papers or mentoring students, our postdocs contribute so much to the success of SMEA! See the great things our postdocs are involved in: PostDoc News
Thank you Nathan, Stacia and Jimmy for all you do! 

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. 

The Office of Postdoctoral Affairs put a call out to all graduate students to nominate a postdoc who has made a difference in their lives. Among the many nominees SMEA Postdoc Stacia Dreyer was awarded the 2016 Postdoc Mentoring Award. Congratulations Stacia! Thank you for your remarkable work and for making a difference for SMEA students. 

Congratulations to Professor Eddie Allison, Post-Doc Nathan Bennett, Professor Nives Dolsak, Assistant Professor Ryan Kelly, SMEA Alumna Natalie Lowell, Post-Doc Jimmy O’Donnell and SMEA Alumni Jesse Port on their publications that have come out winter quarter covering a variety of topics in marine and environmental affairs.
EDDIE ALLISON
Christophe Bene, Robert Arthur, Hannah Norbury, Edward H. Allison, Malcolm Beveridge, Simon Bush, Liam Campling, Will Leschen, David Little, Dale Squires, Shakuntala H. 

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)”.  

The School of Marine and Environmental Affairs was recently represented at the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics (CANSEE) & United States Society for Ecological Economics (USSEE) 2015 Joint Biennial Conference by Research Associate Dr. Stacia Dreyer and 2nd year graduate student Hilary Polis. The conference, themed, Pathways for Change: Toward a Just and Sustainable Economy, was held in Vancouver, BC, Canada October 1-4. 

SMEA would like to welcome its newest post-doc and Fulbright Visiting Scholar Dr. Nathan Bennett. Nathan will be working with Professor Patrick Christie conducting research on the human dimensions of marine conservation and management. He recently published his first article associated with his new affiliation at UW titled “Communities and change in the anthropocene: Understanding social-ecological vulnerability and planning adaptations to multiple interacting exposures”. 

SMEA Research Associate Stacia Dreyer led a study looking at views towards a carbon pricing policy before and after the 2013 federal election in Australia, which was the first nation to repeal an existing carbon pricing policy.
The report, “Australians’ views on carbon pricing before and after the 2013 federal election,” was published in Nature Climate Change. The study found policy acceptance was higher than support at both times, and acceptance did not always lead to support, highlighting the need to measure acceptance and support separately.