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. 

The University of Washington and The Nippon Foundation today announced the Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus Center, an interdisciplinary research group at the UW that studies changes, responses and solutions to societal issues that emerge in relationship with the oceans. The Center will bring uncompromised, critical voices to policy and public conversations to enable research and studies equaling $32.5 million spread over 10 years. 

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. 

Leadership at the School of Marine & Environmental Affairs (SMEA) is closely monitoring the local outbreak of the novel coronavirus and is making every effort to address the changing needs of the school community, wherever possible.
SMEA continues to follow all advice and directives set forth by the University of Washington, which are detailed at length on the UW Novel Coronavirus Information Page. 

Considering the best interest of our students and taking social-distancing steps to support the region’s efforts against the COVID-19 outbreak, SMEA staff is offering online advising options. Please e-mail our staff to schedule an online appointment.
For issues related to current student advising, course registration, and graduation requirements, as well as application to our program and prospective student information, please e-mail Tiffany Dion at tlcdion@uw.edu or call 206-543-0106. 

Congratulations to recent SMEA graduates Katie Chicojay, Kelly Martin and Spencer Showalter who were selected as Washington Sea Grant John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellows for 2020. The 2020 finalists will become the 41st class of the John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship program. The 69 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 recent SMEA graduates Tressa Arbow, Rachel Assink, Ashley Bagley, Angela Cruz and Alex Sweetser on being selected for the Washington Sea Grant State Fellowship 2019-2020. The Washington Sea Grant State Fellowship (formerly the Marc Hershman Marine Policy Fellowship) offers a unique educational opportunity for soon-to-graduate or recently finished graduate students engaged in studies pertaining to ocean and coastal policy issues. 

Recently, an anonymous donor committed to give $125,000 to support students in the School of Marine & Environmental Affairs that are working on research projects related to the conservation and management of marine resources in the Alaska region, as well as state, federal, or international agencies’ management and policy objectives. The North Pacific Marine Resources Term Fellowship will help create immersive opportunities for these graduate students to conduct critical marine resource management and conservation research in the coastal and international waters off Alaska. 

Congratulations to SMEA student Angela Cruz who won the “Best Paper Award” for students at the 7th Global Conference on Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries (GAF7) in Bangkok, Thailand. Her oral presentation titled “Addressing Gender Gaps from a Programmatic Perspective” discussed how USAID programs perform gender mainstreaming in fisheries and the challenges they face in doing so. The presentation was based on Cruz’s preliminary results from her thesis work that was conducted while she was interning with a USAID project in Jakarta, Indonesia over the summer. 

Congratulations to SMEA student Ashley Bagley, whose poster on temperature variation and salmon abundance in Stillaguamish River floodplains won first place in the student poster competition at the Restoring Resilient Communities in Changing Landscapes Conference. The conference, hosted by the Society for Ecological Restoration and the Society of Wetland Scientists, brought together scientists, practitioners and decision makers to share knowledge about the ways in which ecological restoration can build resilience of ecological and human communities in changing landscapes.