SMEA Professor of Practice Phil Levin has been appointed to the White House! The Biden-Harris administration has announced Phil’s appointment as director of the inaugural United States National Nature Assessment (NNA). The NNA uses an interdisciplinary lens to review the impact of nature on everyday human life. An assessment is tentatively scheduled for release in 2026. During this appointment, Phil will pause his teaching and advising responsibilities within SMEA. 

Affiliate SMEA faculty member, Eric Laschever, in collaboration with Associate Professor Ryan Kelly, Michelle Hoge, and Kai Lee, recently published an article in the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, which provides a legal analysis of environmental DNA (eDNA) under existing U.S. federal statutes. The work was presented on April 4th at the New York Associated Journal Symposium. A copy of the journal article is available for review here. 

The School of Marine & Environmental Affairs will hold its next faculty meeting on Thursday, April 6, at 12:00pm. Please see below for location details;
Ocean  Building, Room 207 or via Zoom using the information below:
https://washington.zoom.us/j/93393936028?pwd=ZUxHS3liOGQ0ZTB6L0tyZDVPMEFYdz09
Meeting ID: 933 9393 6028
Passcode: 457426 US (Seattle)
A copy of the meeting agenda can be found here. Please contact Michaela Miller (mcski@uw.edu) with any questions or for more information. 

SMEA director Dr. Nives Dolšak and Dr. Eduardo Gallo Cajiao, a David H. Smith Postdoctoral Fellow at SMEA, along with a team of  scholars from Canada, Australia, South Africa, and the U.S., consider what the pending ‘Pandemic Treaty’ should incorporate  regarding the prevention of pandemics from the wildlife trade. Prevention of pandemics should focus on prevention at source, which means that zoonotic spillovers need to be avoided as globalization creates challenges for outbreak containment. 

The University of Washington, along with the University of Alaska and Iowa State University, have received U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funding for research relating to the impact of climate change on vulnerable communities. The grant, which SMEA Assistant Professor Cleo Wölfle Hazard Co-PIed, provides UW $1.2M for a project researching preservation along the Duwamish River. For more information, you can read the Fox13 article here. 

The School of Marine & Environmental Affairs will hold its next faculty meeting on Thursday, March 2, 12:00pm. Please see below for location details;
Fishery Sciences Building, Room 207
or via Zoom https://washington.zoom.us/j/9175532830 
A copy of the meeting agenda can be found here. Please contact Michaela Miller (mcski@uw.edu) with any questions or for more information. 

SMEA faculty Nives Dolšak and Dr. Eduardo Gallo Cajiao, a David H. Smith Postdoctoral Fellow at SMEA, along with a team of  scholars from Europe, Australia, Asia, and North America, discuss complex challenges for the governance of biodiversity resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Specifically, they examine three interacting factors: (1) the isolation of Russia from the international system, (ii) the delay of international cooperation, and (iii) changes in international and domestic policy priorities. 

Professor Nives Dolšak and coauthors examined whether endorsing climate policies, such as the Green New Deal, brings electoral payoffs. After publishing an academic paper in PLOS Climate, which was listed among the journal highlights of 2022, they wrote a shorter article for the Washington Post accessible to the public. Now, their work has been listed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on her official House website. 

SMEA Professor of Practice Yoshi Ota and Ocean Nexus’s international report was highlighted in a recent UW News article. The report titled, “Towards an Equitable Approach to Marine Plastics Pollution” presents how marine pollution impacts the human population and promotes an equity-focus to addressing this issue. The report features topics from COVID-19 to Coca-Cola. You can read the complete article by Hannah Hickey here. 

SMEA faculty continue to contribute to the scholarship of marine and environmental affairs. In 2022, we published two books and over 30 articles in prestigious environmental, marine, and interdisciplinary journals. Many of these were co-authored with our students and our postdoctoral scholars. Below is a collection of these works. Faculty names are in bold; names of students and postdoctoral scholars trained by our faculty are underlined.