MEES Students Receive
Knauss Fellowships

Sara Gottlieb and Jill Stevenson, both graduate students in the Marine-Estuarine-Environmental Sciences (MEES) program at the University of Maryland, College Park, are this year's Maryland recipients of Knauss Marine Policy Fellowships. The Fellowship Program, begun in 1979 and coordinated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Sea Grant Office, provides graduate students across the nation with an opportunity to spend a year working with policy and science experts in Washington, DC. Fellows are competitively selected from a list of graduate students recommended by the directors of the 30 Sea Grant programs in individual states.

Pictured left is Sara Gottlieb, at work in the lab, and to the right is Jill Stevenson, when she was an REU fellow at HPL in 1991.

For her Fellowship year, Sara Gottlieb will work full-time in the office of Representative Steven LaTourette of Ohio, co-chair of the Great Lakes Task Force. She will also help out in the Northeast-Midwest Institute in the office of Senator John Glenn. Gottlieb worked for two years as a Maryland Sea Grant Trainee, first with UMCES Chesapeake Biological Laboratory (CBL) researcher Douglas Capone and then with Benedict Estuarine Research Center (BERC) researcher Cynthia Gilmour. Joseph Mihursky, of CBL, is her major advisor. Currently, she is working with Mark Sagoff in the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy in the UMCP School of Public Affairs. She plans to complete her Ph.D. after her she finishes her Fellowship. Gottlieb received her undergraduate degree, with an environmental science major, in 1994 from the College of William and Mary.

Jill Stevenson will work in NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service, in the Office of Sustainable Fisheries, Division of Highly Migratory Species, with several researchers, including Richard Surdie. Stevenson currently works as a graduate assistant with CBL scientist David Secor doing research on the Atlantic sturgeon. She plans to complete her M.S. in Fisheries Science in the MEES program by Spring 1997. Stevenson received her bachelors degree in 1992 from Columbia University, where she majored in geochemistry.

Stevenson and Gottlieb first came to the University of Maryland when they received summer fellowships in Maryland Sea Grant's Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, funded by the National Science Foundation, and awarded to outstanding students studying marine and environmental science. Stevenson spent her 1991 undergraduate fellowship at Horn Point Laboratory (HPL), working with scientist Jeff Cornwell on sediments and biogeochemistry. Gottlieb spent hers in 1993 at CBL, working with Joel Baker to conduct research on the effect of herbicides in the Patuxent River.

The process for selecting Knauss Fellows begins with the submission of applications by candidates recommended for their excellence by Sea Grant Directors across the nation. The National Sea Grant office then conducts a rigorous review process and awards fellowships to the top candidates. This year the Fellowship program received fifty-five applicants from twenty Sea Grant programs and presented twenty-five awards. Maryland was one of six programs with two Fellowship awards.

Over the years, Knauss Fellows have worked in the legislative and executive branches of the federal government in locations such as the office of U.S. Senators and Representatives, on Congressional subcommittees and at agencies such as the National Science Foundation and NOAA. Fellowships run from February 1 to January 31 and pay a stipend of $30,000.

The application deadline for next year's Knauss Fellowship Program is September 1, 1997. For more information, or an application brochure, contact: Susan Leet, Maryland Sea Grant College, 4321 Hartwick Road, Suite 300, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20740, phone (301) 405-6375, e-mail: leet@mdsg.umd.edu. Brochure information can also be found on the web: http://www.seagrant.noaa.gov/knauss/knauss.html.

Maryland Sea Grant
Research, Outreach & Education Programs
Coast, Bay & Watershed Issues

This page was last modified November 16, 2005

http://www.mdsg.umd.edu/MarineNotes/Nov-Dec96/side3

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