2020 California Sea Grant State Fellows Announced

California Sea Grant has selected 28 recipients for its prestigious State Fellowship, making this year’s cohort the largest yet. This opportunity provides fellows with unparalleled and hands-on training at the interface of science, communication, policy, and management at either a municipal, state, or federal host agency in California for one year. This year’s fellows are distributed among 21 different agencies throughout the state.

“Our State Fellowship program continues to draw very talented applicants, and provides them with the training and knowledge to jump-start careers in coastal and marine policy,” says California Sea Grant Director Shauna Oh. “Thanks to our growing network of strategic partnerships with California agencies, this program prepares some of the best and brightest young minds to become future leaders in the field. I am excited to see the opportunities awaiting the fellows in the coming year.”

All fellowship recipients have graduate-level training at universities within California, with this year’s cohort representing 13 universities throughout the state. This group of fellows brings diverse experience in the realms of environmental policy and management, marine and watershed science, biology and ecology, marine fisheries biology, marine biodiversity and conservation, resource management, environmental systems, earth science, and civil and environmental engineering.

2020 State Fellows and Agencies:

• Melissa Abderrahim - California Ocean Science Trust
• Alyssa Clevenstine - Port of San Diego - Coastal Policy and Planning
• Ross Cooper - California State Water Resources Control Board - Office of Information Management and Analysis
• Dulce Cortez - Port of San Diego - Environmental Conservation
• Nicholas Da Silva - California State Parks
• Mark Danielson - California State Lands Commission - Environmental Justice
• Nicholas DeNezzo - California Sea Grant - Science Communication
• Rose Dodgen - California Fish and Game Commission
• Amanda Haas - Caltrans
• Maggie Jenkins - California State Coastal Conservancy
• Leilani Konrad - Monterey Bay Aquarium
• Viktoria Kuehn - San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission
• Kristina Kunkel - California State Lands Commission
• Keighley Lane - NOAA Office of Aquaculture - Southwest Fisheries Science Center
• Ella McDougall - California State Coastal Conservancy
• Michaela Miller - Ocean Protection Council - Climate Change Program
• Claire Nasr - NOAA Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary
• Cheryl Patel - Delta Science Program - Science-Based Adaptive Management Unit
• Byron Riggins - Delta Science Program - Collaborative Science and Peer Review Unit
• Abigail Ryder - California Energy Commission
• Kelly Santos - San Francisco Estuary Partnership
• Carly Shabo - NOAA Office for Coastal Management - West Coast Region
• Jeremy Smith - California Coastal Commission
• Sky Smith - Center for Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation - Scripps Institution of Oceanography
• Karen Tanner - San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission
• Keara Tuso - California State Water Resources Control Board - Ocean Standards Unit
• Matthew Warham - Ocean Protection Council - Marine Protected Area Program
• Molly Williams - Delta Stewardship Council - Planning and Performance Division