Three students from UWM’s School of Freshwater Sciences have received major awards from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for this academic year.
Doctoral students Danielle Cloutier and Shelby LaBuhn received the John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship for 2017. They are the only Wisconsin recipients of this award, and among six students overall that the School of Freshwater Sciences has placed in the fellowship program in the past three years.
Cristal Sanchez-Estrada, a senior in biological sciences and a McNair Scholar, received the Carl J. Weston Memorial Scholarship through the NOAA program. Sanchez-Estrada is an undergraduate student scientist in the School of Freshwater Sciences, working in the lab of Russell Cuhel, senior scientist at the school.
The Sea Grant Knauss Fellowships offer doctoral students the opportunity to work with hosts in the legislative and executive branches of government on ocean, coastal and Great Lakes policy. Previous UWM recipients of the award have gone on to careers in Washington, D.C., working on water policy and resource issues.
Cloutier, a PhD candidate in the lab of Professor Sandra McLellan, has been working on water quality and fecal contamination in urban waterways and beaches. She has been named a legislative fellow and will be placed in the legislative branch of the U.S. government.
LaBuhn, also a PhD candidate, has been working under the direction of J. Val Klump, associate dean, on hypoxia (“dead zones” that lack oxygen) issues plaguing Green Bay in Lake Michigan. She has been named an executive fellow.
