
SMEA Student Selected as 2024 Bonderman Fellow
SMEA student Adriana Apintiloaiei has been selected as a member of the 2024 Bonderman Fellow cohort. The Bonderman Fellowship was created by UW alumnus, David Bonderman, in 1995. This fellowship provides graduate and professional students with the opportunity to independently travel abroad to encourage discovery and learn to understand the world in new ways. The 2024 cohort cover a wide variety of interests including:
Interconnectedness
Reciprocal relationships with land
Disability rights
Biracial identities
Notions of the Absurd across the world
The connection between people and water
Queer communities around the world

SMEA Speaker Series
Please join us this Thursday, May 30th, from 12-1 PM in FSH 203 or on Zoom for our final SMEA Speaker Series: Careers in Marine and Environmental Affairs. This week we will be hearing from four panelists: Chris Boylan, Dan Hull, Elise Lasky, and Annika Saltman who will be sharing their experience working in the private sector.
Zoom: https://lnkd.in/dPa4uAQG
Meeting ID: 927 8726 9100
Passcode: seminar

Diving into Kelp Conservation and Research
By Taylor Hughes, Class of 2025
A few days in the Pacific Northwest is enough to see that salmon and orcas are the region’s lifeblood. These species elicit deep emotional responses that tie people to this place and make marine resource management a dinner-table topic. Historically, seaweed has not topped the list of priorities for marine conservation, despite playing a significant ecological role in supporting economically and culturally important species.

Note from the Director: Spring 2024
Dear SMEA friends!
SMEA is humming with activities. On May 10th, we had eight outstanding thesis presentations, that featured research spanning across the entire globe, from Bangladesh, to Maine, New York, Alaska, Columbia River, and Salish Sea, examining ways to manage and respond to vastly different marine and environmental challenges, such as impacts of climate change on plankton, fisheries, large marine mammals and natural-resource dependent communities, potentials of community science to improve ocean data, and factors impacting permitting of tidal energy.

Your Support of SMEA Students Makes a Difference
By Ben Johns
On behalf of the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs (SMEA), thank you for your part in making SMEA’s graduate degree program truly special. We are grateful for the many contributions of alumni and supporters to such an incredible legacy.
Today, we humbly ask you to make a gift in support of SMEA students. Gifts of any amount make a difference in the lives of students and their bright futures.
Washed in on the Tide: Alumni Updates
By Dave Fluharty
Brian Offord (1983)
By Brian Offord
I worked for the office of the Governor in the States of Hawaii and Washington, and US Territories, Northern Mariana Islands, as manager of coastal zone and marine programs in the Pacific Region, and major riverine and estuarine stems the Columbia River and Puget Sound. It has been and remains a very gratifying experience that has given me opportunities for broad involvement in a variety of disciplines.

SMEA Speaker Series
Please join us this Thursday, May 23rd, from 12-1 PM in FSH 203 or on Zoom for our fourth SMEA Speaker Series: Careers in Marine and Environmental Affairs. This week we will be hearing from four panelists: Laura Nelson, Allen Shimada, Dan Tonnes, and Usha Varanasi who will be sharing their experience working with/for the U.S. Federal Government.
Zoom: https://lnkd.in/dPa4uAQG
Meeting ID: 927 8726 9100
Passcode: seminar

Interdisciplinary Marine Affairs Concepts During the Cold War
By Vlad Kaczynski
Editor’s Note: Professor Vlad Kaczynski is an Emeritus faculty member at the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs. In 1976 he joined SMEA (then the Institute for Marine Studies) as a Senior Fulbright Scholar coming to the University of Washington from Poland. He earned degrees from the Merchant Marine Academy, Gdynia, and later to Higher School of Economics in Sopot and finally to University of Gdansk where he obtained his PhD degree in Marine Economics.
SMEA Teaching, Research, and Activities
Strategic Planning
By Dave Fluharty
It has been more than 10 years since SMEA developed a Strategic Plan. Many changes have occurred since the last effort and SMEA is facing many challenges. Therefore, SMEA Director Nives Dolšak led faculty and staff into a planning process during Autumn 2023 and Winter 2024 with facilitation by consultants Brian Murphy and Maddie Immel from BERK Consulting, Inc., Seattle.

SMEA Alumni Employed in Sustainable Shipping
By Bryce Lewis-Smith and Kurt Ellison
As global temperatures continue to rise due to increased concentrations of greenhouse gasses, we need to rethink business-as-usual. Therefore, various sectors and industries are pulling together to determine pathways to reduce their carbon footprints. Maritime shipping, ports, and the connected supply chain play a pivotal role in tackling a globally integrated challenge.
Commercial ships are a critical link in the global supply chain, transporting raw materials, goods, and products across oceans and driving economic growth.
Read more