Sea Grant and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) are pleased to announce the 2018 NMFS-Sea Grant Joint Fellowship recipients. Six population and ecosystem dynamics fellowships and one marine resource economics fellowship were awarded through the competitive selection process. The NMFS-Sea Grant Joint Fellowship program supports students pursuing doctoral degrees in population and ecosystem dynamics as well as marine resource economics. The program is a focused workforce development effort to train highly qualified professionals in areas of critical need for NOAA’s science-based approach to fisheries management.

“Sea Grant is committed to developing a trained marine workforce through our network of university-based programs. The NMFS-Sea Grant fellowships are an important component to Sea Grant’s support of students and professionals in marine sciences and related fields. I wish to congratulate the seven talented fellows chosen this year and wish them luck on their projects,” said Jonathan Pennock, Director of the National Sea Grant College Program.

Fellows are chosen through a two-step competitive process that involves review by the sponsoring state Sea Grant program followed by a national review by an expert panel.

“NMFS is proud of the seven fellows and thankful for this important partnership with Sea Grant to train future fisheries managers and scientists,” said Ned Cyr, Director of NMFS Office of Science and Technology.

Since its inception, the joint fellowship program has supported 94 population and ecosystem dynamics students and 36 marine resource economics students. About 40% of the alumni now work for NOAA.

Population and Ecosystem Dynamics Fellows:

Sabrina Beyer, California Sea Grant, University of California Santa Cruz: Oceanographic effects on rockfish (Sebastes spp.) reproductive success and consequences for population

Joseph Langan, Rhode Island Sea Grant, University of Rhode Island: A Bayesian state-space approach to improve projections of stock biomass for managing New England groundfish

Mackenzie Mazur, Maine Sea Grant, University of Maine: Developing a management strategy evaluation framework for the Maine lobster fishery in a changing Gulf of Maine

Kristen Omori, Virginia Sea Grant, Virginia Institute of Marine Science: Dealing with most species: improving methodology for forming and assessing species complexes

Molly Timmers, Hawai’i Sea Grant, University of Hawai’i: Understanding and predicting population outbreaks of the destructive coral-eating crown-of-thorns sea star, Acanthaster planci, in the U.S. Pacific Islands

Robert Wildermuth, MIT Sea Grant, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth: Performance evaluation of qualitative and Bayesian network social-ecological models for use in an integrated system

Marine Resource Economics Fellow:

Gabriel Englander, California Sea Grant, University of California Berkeley: Estimating the Effectiveness of the World’s Fishing-Restricted Areas