Knauss legislative fellowships in Congress help build careers — and they're fun and educational. See our video and fact sheet for details.
Jessica Diaz is a 2024 Knauss Executive Fellow at NOAA in the Office of the Under Secretary/NOAA Administrator. In this position, she is a member of the Under Secretary's Infrastructure team that oversees the implementation and organization of ~$6B for NOAA under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and Inflation Reduction Act investments.
Originally from Houston, Texas, Jessica grew up in an environmental justice community and keeps this experience at the core of her work. She left Houston to pursue a B.S. in Fisheries & Wildlife at Michigan State University with minors in Music and Science, Technology, Environment, & Public Policy (STEPP) and received training in equity and justice in the environmental field as a scholar of the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program at Northern Arizona University. Jessica completed her M.S. in the Marine, Estuarine, & Environmental Sciences Graduate Program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). She was a UMBC ICARE (Interdisciplinary Consortium for Applied Research in the Environment) Trainee, focusing her thesis research on oyster restoration in the Baltimore Harbor with an emphasis on community engagement. In her free time, Jessica enjoys playing music, backpacking, gardening, traveling to see friends and family, and spending time with her partner and two cats.
Knauss legislative fellowships in Congress help build careers — and they're fun and educational. See our video and fact sheet for details.
Maryland Sea Grant has program development funds for start-up efforts, graduate student research, or strategic support for emerging areas of research. Apply here.
Smithville is a community on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, on the edge of the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. A century ago, Smithville had more than 100 residents. Today, it has four, in two homes: an elderly couple, and one elderly woman and her son, who cares for her.
Oyster aquaculture is a rapidly growing industry in Maryland’s Chesapeake waters which stimulates economic activity and may provide a host of ecosystem benefits. A potential concern associated with the intensification of the oyster aquaculture is the local production and accumulation of oyster biodeposits, which can lead to a porewater sulfide accumulation and declining bioturbation, symptoms of declining ecosystem function. Sulfide is naturally removed from the seafloor by the interactions between bioturbating infauna and sulfide oxidizing bacteria.
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Complicated Contaminants: Finding PFAS in the Chesapeake Bay
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