Ocean Career: Georgia Sea Grant State Fellowship

Georgia Sea Grant State Fellow

The fellowship program serves to increase the capacity of our partners in Georgia, promote integration of diverse perspectives into problem solving for Georgia to provide richer and more inclusive solutions and facilitate training and development of the next generation of coastal and marine leaders.

We are seeking a Georgia Sea Grant State Fellow to join our hard-working and supportive team. We offer a working environment that is welcoming, innovative, positive, fun, and growth-oriented, and we have enjoyed mentoring interns for many years. Since 2019, this partnership has hosted a year-long Sea Grant State Fellow supporting Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary (GRNMS), a federally-designated marine protected area that is administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.

The sanctuary is located approximately 19 miles off the coast of Georgia and encompasses 22 square miles of federal ocean waters, and the office is located in Savannah, GA. A combination of warm and cool currents creates a highly productive marine ecosystem supporting live bottom habitats, a wide diversity of fish and invertebrates, sea turtles and marine mammals. The sanctuary's primary objective is to conserve, protect, and enhance the biodiversity and ecological integrity of marine resources for current and future generations.

This is supported in enabling federal legislation–the National Marine Sanctuaries Act.

The Georgia Sea Grant State Fellow will play a key role in advancing several policy, planning and science projects, working closely with the sanctuary's resource protection coordinator and research coordinator. The fellow will help foster productive relationships with state and federal agencies, academic institutions, and stakeholders. In this position, the fellow will gain the diverse skills and professional experience necessary to succeed in a natural resource management career.

Former sanctuary fellows at other sanctuary sites within the system have become permanent or contract NOAA employees, received the Knauss and Presidential Management Fellowships, or taken research and leadership positions in the private, government, and non-profit sectors.

Working in the capacity of a Sanctuary Program Specialist, the Sea Grant State Fellow will support the following priority programs of GRNMS:

Marine Resource Management & Protection Support (approx. 65%)

National Marine Sanctuary Management Plan Reviews (MPRs) are conducted every ten years to assess the effectiveness of current marine resource management policies and approaches for addressing ongoing and emergent conservation needs. MPRs are developed over a multi-year process that significantly engages the public about the future of sanctuary conservation efforts, research, education, and outreach. The fellow will support MPR by:

• Conducting literature reviews to gather and synthesize information and data on marine conservation issues, including some in-depth subject matter investigations and reporting;
• Editing and finalizing the results of a 2021 workshop on ecological connectivity of live bottom habitats in the South Atlantic Bight;
• Assisting with public scoping meeting preparation, outreach, and implementation, including public speaking and meeting facilitation;
  Assimilating and summarizing written and verbal public comments and ideas; and
• Assisting with sanctuary advisory council meeting and subcommittee/working group meeting preparation and implementation.
• General ArcGIS knowledge, analyzing management and policy questions, report writing, spreadsheet, information database, and Google Workspace skills will be beneficial.

Science and Monitoring (approx. 30%)

GRNMS is developing a comprehensive long term monitoring plan that includes living resources, habitat, oceanographic monitoring and other relevant actions. The document serves the purpose of guiding research and science projects for the next several years and ensures close alignment with the GRNMS management plan. The fellow will assist with project planning, implementation and reporting as it pertains to this effort, affording interaction and collaboration with a wide range of researchers and collaborators, gaining a broad and detailed knowledge of science, management, resource allocation and prioritization processes.

The fellow will participate in sanctuary monitoring and applied science activities including helping with data acquisition and processing, summarizing information for presentation and reporting and presenting that information, and occasional trips aboard NOAA research vessels. The fellow may also participate in planning and executing a mini-science symposium for GRNMS research partners to present recent research and monitoring and assist with the science symposium summary.

General ArcGIS knowledge and familiarity with protocol implementation will be beneficial.

Additional Opportunities (approx. 5%)

The fellow will have the…