Navigating the agency world

Throughout 2024, California Sea Grant is showcasing our State Fellowship, which places graduate students in 12-month paid roles with the agencies and organizations that plan, implement and manage ocean policies and programs in California. This month, the third in the series, we’re highlighting fellows working with the San Francisco Estuary Partnership.

San Francisco Estuary Partnership

Hannah Kempf

At the Bodega Marine Laboratory (University of California, Davis), Hannah Kempf was determined that her doctoral research have a tangible impact on human communities. As a result, she focused on mitigation strategies to reduce the impact of ocean acidification on shellfish, a key fishery resource in California. 

When she graduated, Kempf wanted to lean further into such human-centered work. In particular, she wanted to help communities prepare for climate climate change. “But I didn’t really have much experience working with public agencies,” she says. “So the State Fellowship seemed like a really nice stepping stone.”

Her placement at the San Francisco Estuary Partnership offered a deep dive into that world: Though it’s a federal program — a non-regulatory wing of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, technically — it’s housed within two local agencies, the Association of Bay Area Governments and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. On its website, the Estuary Partnership is described as “a regional governmental organization with a federal mandate to protect and restore the nationally significant San Francisco Estuary.” A tangle of agencies, in other words.

Kempf’s work centers on the Estuary Partnership’s Wetlands Regional Monitoring Program. She’s contributing to grant applications, newsletters and surveys, and leading a project to improve the coordination between organizations that conduct environmental monitoring in both the Delta and Bay. The work has provided a glimpse of what work outside academia is like.

“I’ve learned environmental nonprofits are very different from community-based organizations, which are different from government agencies,” Kempf says, with a laugh. “Everybody I’ve come across in this role really cares about having a healthy estuary, and wants people to thrive in and around the estuary — but still, there are so many competing interests.” The result can be complicated and messy, she admits, maybe too messy for some people, but she feels she’s in the right place. “I’m enjoying flexing different brain muscles.”

Lila Bowen

Lila Bowen began thinking about the relationship between conservation science and human beings before graduate school, while working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the Oregon coast, helping refuge visitors understand the local wildlife. But during her master’s studies at Cal Poly Humboldt — where she examined interactions between seabirds and humans — she found herself wanting to better understand that hazy space between the science and its application. “How does science get built into our systems and make a difference in the world?” she wondered.

At the Estuary Partnership, Bowen spends most of her time with the Priority Conservation Area Program, which designates spaces within nine counties that should be identified as priorities for conservation. She’s supported a round of grant funding and overseen behind-the-scenes work, especially having to do with mapping. As part of the broader work to assess the region's open space, Lila is conducting an assessment of the identified values of open spaces and conservation areas: Do these support endangered species, for example, or maybe recreational opportunities, or can they help mitigate the impacts of climate change in the future?

“It’s really given me a picture of the ways that science and management get applied,” Bowen says. “It’s clear that every situation requires a different solution.”

When it comes to her own career, at least, she’s settled on one clear takeaway: “Ask to be a part of things you’re interested in,” she says. One of her goals as she began the fellowship was to learn how planners and managers ensure that conservation efforts are fair and inclusive for everyone. Now, she’s conducting a literature review seeking to understand “green gentrification” — how investments in open space can cause problems like pricing community members out of their homes. “It’s something I’ll carry into other roles, too — to lean into the things you’re excited about.”