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Creating Tomorrowís Coastal Leaders Today

Fellows at the 2008 Annual Fellowship Meeting

At the 2008 Annual Fellowship Meeting, the fellows and fellowship coordinators take a break from the meeting to enjoy an afternoon at Cypress Gardens, a blackwater swamp near Charleston, South Carolina.

Projects proposed by six state coastal zone management agencies have been selected for the 2009 Coastal Management Fellowship program. Completion of these projects will help states tackle a range of coastal issues and will provide on-the-job education and training opportunities in coastal resource management and policy for six fellows.

Established in 1996 and sponsored by NOAA’s Coastal Services Center, the Coastal Management Fellowship matches students interested in coastal zone management programs with state programs that need their talents and skills, increasing the pool of qualified and trained future coastal zone managers in the process.

Fellows gain the skills, contacts, and confidence needed to transition successfully from academia to work (the majority in state programs). Current state coastal resource managers gain additional resources, creative ideas, and the most current technical knowledge to run their programs effectively. As a result of the fellowship, a variety of technical and policy projects are completed at the state level that might not have been undertaken at all or would have proceeded at a much slower pace.

Participants of the 2007 Fellowship Matching Workshop held in Charleston, South Carolina, where fellows are matched with their state hosts.

For 2009, the California Coastal Commission, the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, and state coastal zone management programs from Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, and Wisconsin will each receive a fellow to address a range of issues. Fellows will help to promote public understanding of climate change, develop plans and targeted tools for managing impacts of climate change such as sea level rise, establish indices to assess the vulnerability of coastal communities to hazards such as storms and diked lands, and build a spatial decision-support toolbox.

For the fellows, this two-year opportunity offers a competitive salary, medical benefits, and travel and relocation expense reimbursement. Applications for the fellowship are due January 26, 2009.