If you are a graduate student interested in combining your education and experience with policy, marine sciences or coastal community resiliency, consider applying for one, or even two, of these fellowships. The opportunities below are open to graduate students enrolled in a master’s or doctorate program. For more information, please visit our Fellowships page or contact Angela Archer at amcbride@purdue.edu or (765)496-3722.

John A. Knauss Fellowship

The Knauss fellowship provides a unique educational experience to students who have an interest in ocean, coastal and Great Lakes resources and in the national policy decisions affecting those resources. The program matches highly qualified graduate students with “hosts” in the legislative and executive branches of government located in the Washington, D.C. area for a one year paid fellowship.

• Application deadline: February 22, 2019, 5pm local time
• Start date: February 1, 2020
• Length: One year
• More info: http://seagrant.noaa.gov/Knauss

NOAA Coastal Management Fellowship

The Coastal Management Fellowship was established to provide on-the-job education and training opportunities in coastal resource management and policy for postgraduate students and to provide project assistance to state coastal zone management programs. The program matches postgraduate students with state coastal zone programs to work on projects proposed by the state.

• Application deadline: January 18, 2019
• Start date: August 1, 2019
• Length: Two years
• More info: http://coast.noaa.gov/fellowship/

National Marine Fisheries Service Fellowships

These fellowships are aimed at Ph.D. candidates, who are United States citizens, interested in the population dynamics of living marine resources and the development and implementation of quantitative methods for assessing their status. The marine resource economics fellowship concentrates on the conservation and management of marine resources.

• Application deadline: January 30, 2019
• Length: Up to two years for Marine Economics and up to three years for Population Dynamics
• More info: http://seagrant.noaa.gov/NMFS-SG-Fellowship

One year has passed for Monica Gregory, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant’s first NOAA Coastal Management Fellow. We caught up with her to hear about her first year. Monica will be finishing her two-year fellowship in July 2018. Stay tuned for her final installment.

“It’s hard to believe that it’s been over a year since I was selected as a NOAA Coastal Management Fellow (CMF) for North Carolina. I remember receiving the email invitation to interview for the project; I was thrilled (and nervous!) for the opportunity to fly to Charleston and meet potential employers. I was lucky enough to connect with the project in North Carolina, and here I am!

My office is with the Division of Coastal Management in Morehead City. I am halfway through my main project on community resilience planning. I am working with five pilot communities in North Carolina to map their social and physical vulnerabilities to coastal hazards. I have completed my work with town managers and planners to map their towns. This fall, I will be facilitating workshops and public meetings for resident input.

We hope to use the maps to identify priority areas for resilience work, then create a comprehensive list of resilience projects that could be feasible for each town depending on their unique circumstances. The overall idea is to create a larger framework guide on resilience planning for coastal communities in North Carolina. Our five case studies will be references for communities that are experiencing similar issues.

Monica (left) and DCM planner Rachel Love-Adrick mapping Town of Edenton’s vulnerabilities

August marks my one year anniversary as a CMF. In that time, I have had the chance to dig into my project, to learn all about the field of resilience and hazard mitigation, and to meet inspiring people in local government, as well as NOAA and The Nature Conservancy, to name a few.

I have used my skills in research, survey design, and community engagement. I have improved essential skills like networking, public speaking, and partnership-building. I have traveled around the south and southeast to attend conferences on topics from climate change adaptation to technology in coastal management. Most of all, I have found a new home in North Carolina, and I have fallen even more in love with the Southeast region.”

Barrier islands shortly after Hurricane Matthew