As a culminating presentation by the Nexus Fellows in Indigenous Ocean Ecologies, first-year SMEA student and Nexus Graduate fellow Izzi Lavallee will lead a presentation on the work their “research family” has done around “Indigenous Ocean Ecologies”. The presentation will feature several undergrad fellows speaking about the community-engaged projects they designed this year. Izzi worked closely with SMEA Assistant Professor P. 

Several students nearing graduation will be presenting their thesis research on Friday, May 14th. In pursuit of their Master’s of Marine Affairs, students may elect to complete a collaborative capstone project, focus on courses-only, or complete thesis research. Under the guidance of their faculty advisor, student presenters have worked for nearly the last two years on projects of their design.  This series of presentations represents the culmination of this work. 

Why did you decide to pursue a Master of Marine Affairs?
About ten years ago I started organizing back in my hometown in the San Francisco Bay Area, working on everything from anti-eviction campaigns to wetland protection campaigns and local election campaigns. When I went back to school some years later to finish my bachelor’s degree, I was excited to be thinking about and working in marine science again, but I was bummed that the policy and advocacy work I was doing had to take a backseat to my education. 

Students completing the Capstone Track in their Master’s of Marine Affairs program will be delivering their findings and final report to the School of Marine & Environmental Affairs community this Friday (March 5th).
After a year of preparation, research, analysis, and reporting, Capstone projects culminate in a 25-30 minute presentation where the Capstone Project Team delivers their work to the client. 

Why did you decide to come to UW’s SMEA for graduate school?
After graduating UW as an undergraduate I took a few years off to work as a seasonal environmental consultant to gain hands on professional  experience in the marine science realm.   I was interested  in going back to grad school, but I wanted to make sure that I could make a living.   

Congratulations to recent SMEA graduate Katy Dalton and soon to graduate Megan McKeown who were selected as Sea Grant John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellows for 2021. The 2021 finalists will become the 42nd class of the John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship program. The 74 finalists represent 27 of the 34 Sea Grant programs.
Knauss finalists are chosen through a competitive process that includes several rounds of review at both the state Sea Grant program and national levels. 

Congratulations to Lindsey Popken, 1 of 10 UW graduate students who were awarded FLAS Fellowships to study French, Nuu-chah-nulth and Tsek’ene in 2020-21. These 10 students represent UW’s School of Law, School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, School of Public Health, Department of Linguistics, and the Applied Masters in International Studies in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.
Lindsey is interested in sea otter conservation and is developing a project with the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council in British Columbia (B.C.) that she hopes will help shape relations between the Tribal Council and Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans. 

On Thursday, June 11, 2020 the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs held its graduation ceremony via Zoom. A welcome was given by SMEA Director, Nives Dolsak, followed by opening remarks from the College of the Environment Dean, Lisa Graumlich, and a special keynote speaker. Graduating students Charlotte Dohrn and Sallie Lau were nominated as the class of 2020 student speakers. 

On Friday, May 8th and Friday, June 5th, students in the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs will offer their findings in their final thesis presentations. Students have been conducting their research for over a year under the guidance of their faculty advisor, as well as other faculty members and industry professionals.
Those presenting on May 8th, including links to their Zoom presentation are below:

Time Slot
Student Name
Thesis Title
Advisor/Committee

9:40
Charlotte Dohrn
Olympia oyster restoration: habitat suitability and climate considerations
Terrie Klinger/Sunny Jardine

10:00
Emily Buckner
Community Science and Stable Isotopes Analysis: Investigating Spatial Foraging Patterns of a Puget Sound Seabird
Terrie Klinger/Ryan Kelly/Paul Chittaro

10:20
Chris Dailey
Regional and climate-driven factors affecting the timing of sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) smolt migrations in Alaska
Terrie Klinger/Tom Quinn

10:40
Abby Jahn
Do Pacific Salmon Hatchery Programs Work for Their Intended Purpose? 

Congratulations to SMEA ’20 students Alex Tellez, Elise Lasky and their team for being awarded 3rd place in the 2020 Alaska Airlines Environmental Innovation Challenge! Their team, Kokanee Systems, which included teammates from the Foster School of Business, School of the Environmental and Forest Science, and School of Computer Science and Engineering, competed with a water quality monitoring and alert system consisting of a floating monitor that feeds real-time, continuous data to their custom cloud-based data analytics platform.