Before her John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship, Tricia Light had spent five years completing a Ph.D. at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. Her days were spent in scientific laboratories, then, or aboard research vessels. So the marble hallways of a Washington, D.C., executive office were a starkly new setting.
As a master’s student at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Laura Engeman hoped to launch a career in coastal and ocean protection policy. Her faculty advisor suggested she look into an organization called California Sea Grant, which offered a program that placed fellows in state agencies.
Engeman applied and was accepted — and unwittingly found the compass that would guide much of her subsequent career.
PROJECT HIGHLIGHT
This project will develop novel non-invasive genomic tools to monitor two endangered fish species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta by detecting RNA molecules they naturally release into the water. Unlike traditional monitoring that requires catching fish, this innovative approach using environmental RNA could provide more precise information about where these rare fish are and how they're doing.
PROJECT SUMMARY: