By: Kate Shlepr. Change invites uncertainty and therefore risk. I feel the weight and exhilaration of this reality as I sit to reflect on events from the past six months, both in my personal life and in our world. For one, it strikes me that I am (now) an openly queer person writing from my desk in a Congressional office two generations after...

By: Nicholas Anderson. I work at the NOAA Fisheries Office of Habitat Conservation in support of one of the agency’s missions, to ensure our nation has sustainable fisheries and recover threatened and endangered species by promoting fish passage at hydropower dams. I visited two hydropower dams in May 2021 to see how at a local...

By: Michaela Margida. If you type the title of this article into a Google search, as I did nearly a year ago when I was first placed in U.S. Senator Cory Booker’s office as a Legislative Knauss Fellow, you’ll find that there are over 27 pages of results. I read the first 30 or so search results before realizing that confidence...

By: Shellby Johnson. When I received an unexpected invitation during my Knauss Fellowship to join an ocean exploration transit across the North Atlantic, stress definitely entered the room, but I chose to fight, and it was one of the best professional and personal experiences of my life. Learn about my experience in this interactive feature.

By: María Mercedes Carruthers Ferrero. “FEMA flexible” is a phrase I have heard many times throughout my Knauss Fellowship. I have learned that the mindset alluded to by this phrase is not only key to achieving community resilience, but to personal and professional success. 

By: Megan McKeown. Turn on any of today’s news outlets and it’s easy to believe bipartisanship is dead. But after almost a year of witnessing how the “sausage gets made” on Capitol Hill, I can tell you that there are pockets of Congress where bipartisanship is still alive.

By: Marina Cucuzza. In my work on climate and fisheries issues at the national scale as a Knauss fellow, I am often reminded of the lessons learned from years working with fishers and fishing communities in Maine and in other coastal places. During my Knauss fellowship, I have been able to see firsthand how public input is critical in shaping...

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 those resources.” Although it is not explicitly stated, meteorology does fall under this statement. The atmosphere and the ocean are...

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, effective communication and the ability to process and distill complex information.

By: Lu Wang. To take full advantage of all this year has to offer, I adapted a mindset early on in the fellowship to try to say “yes” to every opportunity. And so when my host office asked me if I wanted to go to sea as part of my fellowship, my response could only be, “Absolutely, I do.”   

By: Halle Berger. Over the past decade, the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program (OAP) has grown through the recruitment of Sea Grant Knauss fellows like myself. In celebration of OAP’s 10th anniversary, I interviewed the former Knauss fellows currently working in OAP to better understand how the program has evolved since its...

By: Elle Wibisono. As an Indonesian fishery scientist, I had no previous knowledge of or experience with the inner workings of the U.S. Congress. Now, as a "leg" fellow, I've learned I need to be prepared to respond to virtually anything. Here is a glimpse of a calm day in the life of a legislative fellow.

By: So-Jung Youn. There’s something to be said for the strength and comfort you find in being surrounded by a community that’s passionate and dedicated to the same issues you care about. Listening to the Capitol Hill Ocean Week 2021 speakers, I was inspired by their stories, dedication and perseverance.

By: Clea Harrelson. “Who is that?” was a constant refrain in my head for the first few months of my Knauss fellowship. The feeling of being overwhelmed that comes with the beginning of any new job is often described as a “crush”, but for me, it was more accurately a sensation of being untethered, floating in interagency...

By: Maggie Beetstra. As a social scientist in the Midwest, I spent hours and hours having conversations with farmers, visiting their farms, meeting their families, and trying to understand how they make conservation decisions. Now, as a Knauss fellow, I’ve traded the corn and soybean fields for community resilience and marine education,...

By: Kaitlyn Lowder. As a Knauss fellow who just finished up her fellowship year, I can confidently say I had the opportunity to gain the experience that I envisioned and more. Yet, reflecting on this past year, there is an aspect to this fellowship that I had not expected but now cannot imagine advancing my career without: a wealth of professional...

By: Bryan Keller. There are plenty of fish in the sea and some of them taste really good. That is how the saying goes, right? Fisheries management is the reason why plenty of fish continue to be in the sea. But, without fisheries science, fisheries management would not be successful. Transitioning from the world of academia to the world of policy,...

By: Taylor Goelz. In honor of National Mentoring Month, I wanted to add my two cents to the #WomenInSTEM mentorship conversation and use my Knauss Blog to highlight the female mentors that have made a difference in my life and journey. These women, among many others that I’ve interacted with over the years, exemplify the type of mentor that I...

By: Josie Lindsey-Robbins. This fellowship year has been unlike years past, with the majority of fellows in my cohort exclusively teleworking since March 2020. For all future fellows, here are five things I think you need in order to have a successful virtual fellowship.

By: Caroline Wiernicki. Who has the monkey? It’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. In the words of William Oncken Jr. and Donald L. Wass, the proverbial “monkey” is a concept key to working on a team: an individual’s responsibility or task that contributes towards the team’s broader goals.