UMaine Grad Student Awarded Prestigious Fellowship
Contact: Linda Healy, Darling Marine Center 563-3146, ext 200
WALPOLE — Emily Knight, a graduate student at the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center studying with Prof. Les Watling, has been awarded a John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship for 2006.
The prestigious Knauss Fellowships provide an opportunity for graduate students interested in marine resources to pursue a career path in public policy by placing grads with “hosts” in the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. The Knauss Fellowship is sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) and awarded to about 40 graduate students each year.
Working with Watling, Knight is studying the effects of trawling on mixed-bottom habitats. Her project is unique because it was proposed by a fisherman, Cameron McLellan, and requires the knowledge and cooperation of both fishermen and scientists.
Understanding these benthic communities is an important part of making sound fishing regulations since commercial species such as pollock, cod and haddock rely on the sponges, worms, crustaceans and other animals living in and on the sand/gravel substrate as their primary food source.
Knight is specifically looking at the ability of these communities to rebound after being disturbed by fishing gear. Aboard McLellan’s boat the F/V Adventurer, they sampled and videotaped the habitats in popular fishing grounds and within the Western Gulf of Maine Closed Area and Stellwagon Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
In November, she will go to Washington DC and get her legislative assignment with a lawmaker for whom fisheries management, ecosystem management and marine protected areas are big issues.
Over the past couple of years, Knight has worked closely with both scientists and fishermen. She says she is excited to go to Washington, learn about federal legislation, and to work on a larger range of marine related issues.