Three graduate students from the College of the Environment have been awarded the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship, which recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This year’s awardees include Irita Aylward and Zoe Krauss from the School of Oceanography, and Helena McMonagle from the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences.

Last year, the UW Alaska Salmon Program partnered with Waterlust, an apparel and media company, to develop a line of salmon-inspired clothing. Waterlust’s clothing line, dubbed “advocated apparel,” aims to bring awareness to aquatic science and conservation-based causes by turning designs found in nature into fashion. The company has previously worked with other institutions and nonprofits to develop prints inspired by sea turtles, whale sharks, and spotted dolphins. 

SAFS’ global network is one of its greatest strengths, providing nearly limitless opportunities for scientific and personal discovery. Explore some of our research highlights, spread across tropical and northern latitudes, through an interactive map. Deep dive into our new and exciting projects that provide students interdisciplinary study abroad experiences.

Each year, our students, faculty, and staff win regional, national, and international awards. Please join us in congratulating this year’s group of award winners!

In fall 2019, José Guzmán was appointed as a lecturer at SAFS, where he had been an instructor from 2015 to 2019. José has been recognized for his teaching excellence, receiving both the UW Distinguished Teaching Award and the College of the Environment Outstanding Teaching Award in 2019. A native of Spain, José earned his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Marine Sciences at the University of Cádiz. Before coming to SAFS, José was a postdoctoral fellow at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries.

Camrin Braun (Cam), an oceanographer and fish ecologist focused on top predators, joined the SAFS faculty in fall 2019. Prior to coming to SAFS, Cam was a NASA-funded postdoctoral research scientist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory and before that, a PhD student in Simon Thorrold’s lab at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cam’s research leverages computational and field-based approaches to unite biophysical interactions with the challenges of managing fisheries in a dynamic ocean.

Last quarter we caught up with Delaney Lawson who was down on South Caicos as part of a study abroad experience with the School for Field Studies (SFS)

Take a deep dive into the ecology of marine top predators and the ocean ecosystems they rely on in FISH 497B

The University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences recently hosted the SeaDoc Society and its Explore the Salish Sea Educator Workshop with the goal of working with King County-area teachers to meet Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) by incorporating local Salish Sea issues and topics into their classrooms.

A team led by the University of Washington and Stanford University has discovered clues in the environment that help identify transmission hotspots for schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease that is second only to malaria in its global health impact. The research, publishing the week of Oct. 28 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses rigorous field sampling and aerial images to precisely map communities that are at greatest risk for schistosomiasis.