Jennifer Arnold, a Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Biology, has been selected as a 1999 Dean John Knauss Marine Policy Fellow. This one-year fellowship, sponsored by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association's (NOAA's) Sea Grant College Program, is designed for graduate students with an interest in marine/ocean/Great Lakes resources and the national policy decisions affecting them. The program was started in 1979 by the NOAA with the purpose of integrating biology and public policy. Students are paired with host offices in the executive or legislative branch of the US government. Twenty to thirty fellowships are granted each year. To date there have been 341 fellows working in this collaboration between science and public policy; Arnold is the first biology student from UMass Boston, previously five Environmental Science students have received fellowships.
Arnold will be working at the Restoration Center of the National Marine Fisheries Service's Department of Habitat Conservation in the executive branch in Washington, DC. This department conducts damage assessments on any habitats degraded by human activities - - oils spills, chemical pollution and other threats to the ecology. After an assessment of the degraded habitat, officials then work toward establishing what needs to be done in order to restore the habitat or make it biologically stable.
Arnold's area of specialization is the science of sea birds, in particular the common tern. Locally, Arnold has worked in Buzzard's Bay in Massachusetts, a nesting place for the common tern. She is studying evolutionary ecology in sea birds at UMass Boston and intends to return from Washington D.C., to complete her dissertation on the life history study of the common tern in Buzzards Bay and Massachusetts.
- - By Mark Sheehan