Volume 15, Number 6 • November-December 1997

Two Maryland Students
Become Knauss Fellows

Graduate students Kelly Greene and Tom Shyka are this year's Maryland recipients of Knauss Marine Policy Fellowships. Greene is in the Masters program in Environmental Science and Policy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, while Shyka is in the Masters program in Marine-Estuarine-Environmental Science at the University of Maryland.

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.

For her fellowship year, Kelly Greene will work full-time with the staff of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Subcommittee on Oceans and Fisheries. Greene worked for four years at the National Weather Service before beginning her graduate work with Bjorn Gunnarson of the Department of Geology and Environmental Engineering as her major advisor. She is currently working with the Chesapeake Bay Program's Modelling Subcommittee. Greene received her undergraduate degree in Marine Science from the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, in 1991.

[Tom Shyka]

Tom Shyka will spend his fellowship year working in NOAA's National Ocean Service, in the Office of Coastal Resource Management, in the Marine Sanctuary Program, where he will work on coral reef restoration in the Florida Key's Marine Sanctuary and on other management issues in various sanctuaries around the country. A Masters student in the Marine, Estuarine, Environmental Science program at the University of Maryland, Shyka currently works part-time for the Maryland Sea Grant College where he assists in grants management. With advisor Kenneth P. Sebens, in the Department of Zoology, Shyka has focused his graduate work on various aspects of coral feeding and growth. Shyka received his Bachelors degree in Biology, with a concentration in Environmental Science, from Colby College in Maine. Before beginning his graduate studies, he worked at marine laboratories in the U.S. Virgin Islands and in California. In his first year at Maryland, as a NASA/Maryland Sea Grant Summer Fellow in Remote Sensing of the Oceans, he worked with Frank Hoge at NASA's Wallops Island facility.

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-four nominations and presented twenty-seven awards. Maryland was one of three programs with two Fellowship awards.

Over the years, Knauss Fellows have gained experience 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, 1998; however it is useful for those interest in applying to contact Maryland Sea Grant in early spring for guidance and possible volunteer project opportunities.

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 20742
phone (301) 405-7500
e-mail: leet@umbi. umd.edu

Fellowship information can also be found on the web: www.mdsg.umd.edu/Policy/knauss.html.

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Two Maryland Students Become Knauss Fellows

Two Maryland Students
Become Knauss Fellows