Madeline Warner: Turning the tide on plastics by amplifying youth voices

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Plastic Tides
June 13, 2022 – August 26, 2022
Cyberspace

Plastic Tides uses online environmental education campaigns to educate the global community and empower youth to take action against the plastic crisis. Plastic Tides currently maintains an active presence on six accounts across five different social media platforms, providing reliable information and communicating complex topics in environmental science and ecology – free of charge – to a global audience, with minimal barriers to access. Plastic Tides has established its name as a trusted educational outlet and resource for an online community of over fifty thousand followers, and will continue to expand its reach as the organization grows. In particular, the Plastic Tides Global Youth Mentor (GYM) Program connects 12-18 year old Youth Leaders with Mentors from around the world, developing year-long projects to create lasting change in their communities.

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Emily Zimmerman: exposing illegally harvested seafood in traceable supply chains

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Virgil Group
June 20-September 16, 2022
Washington, DC, USA

Student will support the development of Virgil Group’s risk analytics software to detect illegally harvested seafood in traceable supply chains. The primary responsibility of this project is the location and characterization of hard-to-find datasets associated with fisheries in international waters or authorized by key market nations. Secondarily, the student may support the development of customer-facing materials to describe SeafoodCheck and attend meetings with internal and external partners. Finally, as availability and capacity permits, student may have the opportunity to conduct policy analysis on seafood traceability regulations in the US and abroad for Virgil Group’s consultancy clients.

Welcome 2021 CBE Fellows!

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Each year as the summer begins, we get the pleasure of telling the stories of our Center for the Blue Economy Summer Fellows and Honorary Fellows.   These are students who are tackling real-world projects that positively impact our oceans and coasts.  Readers can get a sense of where they are off to and what they are working by looking at their profiles and reading their stories in their own words.   We look forward to hearing more “on-the-ground” workings of these amazing fellows!

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Kelsey Shoup: Socially Responsible Seafood and Sustainable Seaweed

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Seafood Solutions
Oakland, CA USA
June 1-August 17, 2020

Monterey Bay Seaweeds
Moss Landing Marine Labs, Moss Landing, CA, USA
June 1-August 17

This summer, Kelsey will be splitting her time between two organizations: Seafood Solutions and Monterey Bay Seaweeds. At Seafood Solutions Kelsey will support the Project Director to advance select projects of the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions. She will focus primarily on supporting the Alliance’s goal to advance norms and guidance on social responsibility in seafood.

At Monterey Bay Seaweeds, she will work on multiple projects surrounding the production of sustainable seaweed including; social responsibility; sustainability in production and distribution, marketing and branding, fundraising, etc.

Janet Kung: Climate Change and Fisheries Management

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Environmental Defense Fund
San Francisco, CA, USA
June 1- August 7, 2020

Janet will support EDF Oceans in developing country-by-country climate change sensitivity profiles and incorporating climate change impacts into fishery management tools. She will assist the Lead Senior Scientist, Oceans with reviewing peer-reviewed literature on climate change effects on fisheries, supporting research to advance climate-ready fishery management tools, drafting papers on critical topics, and coordinating research efforts among EDF staff and other institutions. By the end of the internship, Janet hopes to have expanded her skills related to climate change and fisheries management and will have a deeper understanding of how ideas and concepts for climate-ready fishery management can be turned into action.

Illeana Alexander: Fisheries Policy for Japan

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Environmental Defense Fund
San Francisco, CA, USA
June 1 – August 7, 2020

This summer Illeana will be working with the Environmental Defense Fund as an Intern in the Ocean Program. They will be working with the Support Japan Team on the developing a way to evaluate the status of Japan’s effort to implement new fisheries policy. They will also help answer any follow up questions from Japan’s team in regards to the nearshore fisheries management paper.

Oceane Ringuette: Climate Change Team

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Ocean Protection Council
Sacramento, California, U.S.A
June 1-July 31, 2020

Over the course of the 9-week summer internship, Oceane will work with the California Ocean Protection Council’s Climate Change Team to help meet the discussed climate change targets and actions explicitly identified in Goal One of the Strategic Plan to Protect California’s Coast and Ocean: COPC Strategic Plan 2020-2025. Primarily, this work will consist of the development of a white paper to inform the draft “Request for Bid” for the Beach Resiliency Plan and/or the Site-Specific Critical Infrastructure Resiliency Plan and will include project scoping for this plan.

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Elizabeth Francis: Analyzing Blue Carbon

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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary
San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
June 1 – August 21, 2020

Elizabeth will be working with the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary to analyze potential sources of blue carbon storage with a case study conducted on the Bolinas Lagoon. She will then analyze and assess the results of her findings in the Sanctuary and write international recommendations and guidelines for blue carbon storage in marine protected areas.

Kimberly Aiken: Arctic Research in Germany

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Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) German Arctic office
Potsdam, Germany
22 July – 20 September, 2019

Kimberly will collect information about international laws and agreements applicable for the Arctic and summarize them in a fact sheet. If possible, she will use graphical tools (e.g. ArcGIS) to illustrate the factsheet. Besides this main task, she will help with the day-to-day work and organization of upcoming events of the AWI German Arctic Office, e.g., a Science to Policy Workshop in Reykjavik, Iceland, taking place in October 2019.

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Abi Ferrazzini: Assessing the Blue Economy of Kenya and Tanzania

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World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and European Institute of Marine Studies (IUEM)
Université de Bretagne Occidentale/IUEM
Brest, France
May 27 – August 16, 2019

The Center for the Blue Economy and the Nicholas Institute of Duke University are conducting a study of the “blue economy,” the contributions of the oceans and coastlines to the economy, and the need to address ocean and coastal sustainability.  Specifically, Abi will research ocean’s contribution to the national economies of Kenya and Tanzania, with special reference to coral reefs. Working with the WWF coordinator for the project, Abi will assist in the gathering and analysis of relevant data and in the preparationof written materials for the project.

Zoe Gapayao: Behavior Change Research for Sustainable Fisheries

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Environmental Defense Fund
San Francisco, CA
June 10-mid August, 2019

Zoe will research the development of behavior change interventions in areas like the Philippines, Chile and Cuba. She will focus on topics such as sustainable aquaculture, indebtedness in unsustainable fishing behavior, and the failure of the National Stock Assessment Plan of the Philippines.

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