UAF student Maggie Chan awarded marine policy fellowship in DC
November 20, 2017 update
UAF graduate student and Knauss Marine Policy Fellow Maggie Chan has received her assignment in Washington, D.C.
“I will be working in the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure (Majority), Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation,” Chan told Alaska Sea Grant this week.
“I’m not sure yet exactly what issues I will be working on but I’m really excited to be working on the committee,” she said.
July 12, 2017 original story
Maggie Chan, graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, will head to Washington, DC, next year as a Knauss Marine Policy Fellow.
Chan is in a select group of 61 fellows nominated by Sea Grant programs nationwide who will start their fellowships in February 2018.
Chan is a PhD candidate in the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, studying the effects of regulations on subsistence and sport halibut fishing in Alaska. Her results provide much needed information on the adaptations fishers make in response to environmental and regulatory changes. She plans to graduate in December 2017.
“A legislative fellowship will help me synthesize our national perspective toward marine resources, and I hope to take that perspective to the international fisheries management stage,” she said.
Experience working in coastal communities from Madagascar to Alaska has inspired her career aspiration to work in international marine policy.
Alaska Sea Grant currently has two Knauss Fellows in DC. Charlotte Regula-Whitefield is a legislative fellow in US Senator Lisa Murkowski’s office, and Kelly Cates works as an executive fellow in the NOAA Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs.
The one-year Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship was established in 1979 to provide an educational opportunity for students interested in marine resources and national policy decisions. The experience has served as a springboard to related careers for over a thousand fellows.
— By Sue Keller