California Sea Grant sends four Knauss Fellows to Washington, D.C.

Four California graduate students nominated by California Sea Grant have been awarded the 2017 John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship. The fellows will complete one-year paid assignments with a host organization in the legislative and executive branches of the federal government in Washington D.C.

The fellowship recipients are:

• Kaitlyn Kalua will spend a year as the Policy Fellow at NOAA National Weather Service Centers for Environmental Prediction. She will work primarily with the Ocean Prediction Center, which provides marine weather forecasts and hazard marine weather warnings. Kalua earned a law degree from University of California, Davis in 2016.
• Christine Sur will be the Legislative Fellow to the House Committee on Natural Resources. She will join the legislative staff, helping to brief Committee members and work on issues such as mitigation of and adaption to global climate change, protection of endangered species and wildlife, and reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Sur earned a master’s degree in ecology from the University of California, Davis in 2016.
• Noah Ben-Aderet will be the Legislative Fellow at the office of U.S. Senator for Oregon Ron Wyden. In his role, Ben-Aderet will join the natural resources team and work on an array of policy issues regarding fisheries and coastal management. Ben-Aderet graduated from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) at the University of California, San Diego, with a doctorate in marine biology in 2017.
• Tori Bahe will serve as the Legislative Fellow at the office of California’s 20th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representative Jimmy Panetta. She will help draft and guide ocean policy legislation, advise Congressman Panetta on marine policy issues, and work with the staff from the House Oceans Caucus. Bahe graduated from Stanford University with a master of science in marine social and biological community conservation in 2016.

The four California fellows join 58 other recent graduates nominated by other Sea Grant programs across the nation.

Sponsored by the National Sea Grant College Program and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Knauss Fellowship program provides a unique educational experience for students interested in the national policy decisions that affect the ocean, coastal and Great Lakes resources.

Applications for the 2018 Knauss Fellowship are being accepted until Feb. 21.