SMEA Professor and Associate Director Nives Dolšak and UW Director of the Center for Environmental Politics Aseem Prakash recently wrote an article featured on The Hill titled, “Environmentalists need to reconnect with blue-collar America.” The article discusses communities with economies that in some way depend on fossil fuels, such as coal country. These communities feel that they carry the unfair burden of “rescuing the polar bear from the melting of the Arctic.” Dolšak and Prakash think environmentalists need to reconnect with blue-collar America. 

Why did you decide to pursue a Master of Marine Affairs?
I have always been drawn to the ocean, and so I started my undergraduate education as a Marine Biology major. I switched to Marine Affairs about halfway through, and loved all of the classes I got to take relating to policy. As graduation got closer, I realized there was so much more about the field I wanted to learn about, and began researching Marine Affairs graduate programs! 

Congratulations to SMEA alumna, Natalie Lowell, for being selected as one of the 2018 Husky 100! Each year, 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.
See Natalie and fellow students honored with the Husky 100 award 

Congratulations to Lily Zhao on being awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) fellowship. Zhao was the awardee for ‘Human Dimensions of Coral Reefs’. The fellowship will allow Zhao to continue her doctorate studies and research on how coral reefs and the coastal communities that depend on them can best recover from severe environmental shocks.
In all, the NSF named 2,000 individuals as this year’s recipients of awards from its Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). 

SMEA Professor Eddie Allison was recently interviewed for an article featured on Oceans Deeply to discuss his research that shows in some developing countries, fish farming is not benefiting nutritionally vulnerable communities. These findings have some researchers and the aquaculture industry pushing back. However, it has also helped to develop a healthy debate. Ben Belton, an assistant professor of international development at Michigan State University, initially had questions regarding Professor Allison’s research, but is now working with him on a paper that Allison “thinks will address some of the contentions and look at the future of aquaculture. 

Alumna Natalie Lowell graduated from the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs in 2015 and is now a PhD student in the School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington. We had a chance to catch up with Natalie recently and hear about what she’s studying, her time at SMEA, and advice she has for current SMEA students. 

SMEA Professor and Associate Director Nives Dolšak, UW Director of the Center for Environmental Politics Aseem Prakash and faculty member at the School of Law, Environment and Planning at Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology in India Shalini Iyengar, recently wrote a piece featured in The Regulatory Review, a publication of the Penn Program on Regulation titled “Should India’s Supreme Court Enforce Regulations?” The article questions the Supreme Court of India’s involvement in enforcing public interest regulations, and whether sustained interventions could affect its ability to interpret the law as an expert, legitimate, and neutral actor. 

Congratulations to SMEA alum Chris Hart, whose SMEA Master’s thesis “Will the California Current lose its nesting Tufted Puffins?” was recently published in PeerJ. Hart worked in collaboration with Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife to ask about the population trends of an iconic species that’s under consideration for the Endangered Species Act (ESA) listing, the Tufted Puffin. Hart’s work could influence the U.S. 

Why did you decide to pursue a Master of Marine Affairs?
I wanted to remain immersed in ocean science while learning how to navigate the interface between science and policy.
Why did you decide to come to UW’s SMEA for graduate school?
It felt like a good fit for my goals. My undergraduate oceanography degree is from UW so I had a good sense of everything the university has to offer. 

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.