PEOPLE AND PLACES: Fellowships Focus on Policy, Water

Every year, North Carolina Sea Grant offers a variety of fellowships to talented graduate students around the state.

This year that includes three finalists to study marine policy in Washington, D.C., as well as five others who will explore water and coastal issues in North Carolina.

“We are pleased to work with national and state partners to provide these focused opportunities,” shares Susan White, North Carolina Sea Grant executive director.

NATIONAL KNAUSS FELLOWS

Three North Carolina graduate students are moving on as finalists for the 2018 Dean John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship, sponsored by the National Sea Grant College Program.

Fellows spend one year working in the nation’s capital on marine-policy issues. Later this fall, finalists will meet with potential host offices in the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. The fellowships will begin Feb. 1, 2018.

“The Knauss fellowship continues to be an excellent bridge for talented students to transition from graduate programs to the working world, with a focus on the roles of coastal and marine science in federal policy,” adds John Fear, North Carolina Sea Grant deputy director.

Five students initially were selected from the state, but two accepted other job offers. Meet the three 2018 Knauss fellow finalists from North Carolina who will continue with the matching process.

• Elizabeth Clark expects to complete her doctorate in marine science and conservation at Duke University this year. Her dissertation focuses on the dynamics of markets and political institutions in fisheries governance. She has a master’s degree in environmental technology and ecological management from Imperial College in London and an undergraduate degree in biology from Washington University in St. Louis. She has been a graduate fellow for the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center and earlier was a sustainable fisheries analyst with MRAG Americas and a marine policy research assistant for the Zoological Society of London.

• Brianna Elliott recently received a master’s degree in environmental management from Duke University. She has an undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where she majored in environmental science and minored in journalism. Her master’s project focused on sperm whales in the Gulf of Mexico as endangered species. In summer 2016, she was a protected species policy intern for the State of Hawai‘i. She also had several years professional experience as a reporter and editor for Oceana, The Huffington Post and the National Audubon Society.

• Devon McGhee recently received her master’s degree in environmental management from Duke University, along with a certificate in natural hazards resilience from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her master’s project focused on the effectiveness of buyouts on Staten Island after Superstorm Sandy. She has an undergraduate degree in biology from Boston University. She has been a coastal policy fellow at the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University, and has been active in the Duke chapter of The Coastal Society.

SEA GRANT/WRRI FELLOWS

North Carolina Sea Grant also partners with the Water Resources Research Institute of the University of North Carolina system to provide fellowships for graduate students across the state. This year, the program sought projects on current water and coastal issues in North Carolina with a focus on reaching new and diverse audiences.

“We recognized that there are groups of faculty and students, as well as communities in our state, who have been underserved and underrepresented in terms of water-related research,” notes Nicole Wilkinson, WRRI coordinator for research and outreach. “We wanted to target our funding in such a way that it created opportunities to address some of those gaps.”

The 2017 fellows are from East Carolina University, North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC-Greensboro. They are:

• Jasmine Hayes, a master’s student in public health at the ECU Brody School of Medicine, will design a conceptual model for community resilience. In addition to her advisor at ECU, Suzanne Lea, she also is partnering with UNC-Pembroke’s Department of Nursing. Hayes aims to develop a community-based participatory resilience approach that reaches out to socially vulnerable communities in eastern North Carolina. Hayes will focus specifically on areas in Pitt and Robeson counties that were affected by flooding during Hurricane Matthew.

• Justine Neville is a master’s student in natural resources at NC State, and her project includes a partnership with UNC-Pembroke. Her advisor is Ryan Emanuel. Neville will study the impacts of Hurricane Matthew on the Lumbee River Basin’s water quality. She will focus on the basin’s ability to process and retain nitrate, as this has ramifications for ecosystem health and the coastal economies that depend on that good health.

• Yaewon Park is a doctoral candidate in textile engineering, chemistry and science at NC State. Park will be partnering with Durham Technical Community College for outreach. Her advisor is Ericka Ford at NC State. The research focuses on reducing the presence of manganese contamination in North Carolina well water. Park aims to develop manganese oxide nanofiber filters as an alternative water filtering method.

• Frank Stillo is a doctoral candidate in UNC-Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, and will be partnering with RTI International. His advisor is Jacqueline MacDonald Gibson at UNC-Chapel Hill. The research focuses on homeowners in Wake County whose private wells have high rates of water contamination. Stillo will conduct interviews to identify their knowledge and perceptions about well-water use in order to design appropriate risk-communication materials for the public.

• Austin Gray, a doctoral student in environmental health science at UNC-Greensboro, will study the presence of antibiotics in rural North Carolina streams and wells. His advisor is Anne Hershey. The presence of antibiotics in drinking water and streams can have negative effects on human health and the ecosystem. This is especially a concern in rural areas where surface water and groundwater may not be treated prior to consumption.

For more about North Carolina Sea Grant fellowships, go to ncseagrant.ncsu.edu/fellowships. Or, contact John Fear at jmfear@ncsu.edu.

This article was published in the Autumn 2017 issue of Coastwatch.

For contact information and reprint requests, visit ncseagrant.ncsu.edu/coastwatch/contact/.