Our Team
Madison Willert, Ph.D.
Marine Debris Specialist
![Madison Willert](https://seagrant.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/2-5-240x300.png)
Madison is the Marine Debris Specialist in the National Sea Grant Office. Her work supports the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act-funded marine debris competitions at Sea Grant.
Prior to this role, she was a joint 2023 Knauss Fellow in the National Sea Grant Office and NOAA’s Marine Debris Program, where she worked to enhance coordination and communication between the two teams concerning marine debris-related activities.
Madison is a marine ecologist, and earned her PhD in 2022 at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Biological Sciences. Her PhD research investigated the long-term effects of overfishing on marine food webs using stable isotope analysis and included a three-year predoctoral research fellowship at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
During her Smithsonian fellowship, Madison analyzed specimens from the museum’s collections to evaluate anthropogenic-mediated dietary shifts in marine mesopredators over the past two hundred years. Her graduate work took her to French Polynesia, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, and Curaçao, inspiring a lifelong love for travel and marine fieldwork.
Madison holds a BA in biology from Carleton College, where she also minored in French. She is passionate about applied science and marine conservation.
Email: madison.willert@noaa.gov
Learn More About Our Work
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Sea Grant Announces 2023 Finalists for the John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship Program
NOAA and Sea Grant are pleased to announce the finalists for the 2023 class of the Sea Grant John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship program. The 2023 class represents the
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Wondering “weather†to apply: How meteorology fits into the Knauss Fellowship
By: Renee Richardson. The Sea Grant Knauss Fellowship specifically targets students who “… have an interest in ocean, coastal and Great Lakes resources and in the national policy decisions affecting
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From Paralichthys to Policy
By: Kenneth Erickson. What makes a fisheries biologist qualified to communicate with Congress about satellites and space policy? The same skills that make a successful graduate student: good time management,