On Saturday, March 8th, the students in our Marine Resources course were given a guest lecture by MSEM alumni, Nick Rowlands. Over the course of his talk, Nick discussed his Master’s Project, how it shifted his professional goals, and the current work he is participating in as a part of his fellowship with the California Sea Grant. He also pointed students toward potential professional development opportunities with the organizations he is collaborating with, that would assist them in building skills that will make them competitive candidates when applying for jobs in the field.
Nick joined the MSEM program in 2022 with a background in writing and editing for San Francisco organizations like AFAR Media and Earthjustice. He had anticipated focusing on climate mitigation and policy, but found his interests shifting toward ecology and water management through his coursework. He cited MSEM courses like Stream and Riparian Ecology, Marine Resources, and Research Methods as playing a key role in finding his research niche. His advice to students was to not get too locked into what they think they want to work on because it will change as they learn more and progress through their classes – “especially Research Methods”. His interest in looking at the marine aspects of environmental management culminated in his Master’s Project, ““An inventory of tidal marsh restoration opportunities in Humboldt Bay and their impact on greenhouse gas emissions”. Nick’s project is a great example of the interdisciplinarity of environmental management; Nick combined his GIS skills with the ecological and biogeochemistry knowledge he received through his courses and applied them to his passion for climate mitigation, producing recommendations on increasing carbon storage in tidal marshes. Nick also discussed how the MSEM program helped him narrow down his career goals to working for a state agency. This led him to apply for the California Sea Grant – a fellowship program intended to give its fellows the opportunity to partake in the planning and implementation of state policies related to coastal and marine resources.
The California Sea Grant program is a great training opportunity for aspiring environmental managers. Nick spoke about the application process during which he had the opportunity to consider working at various different state agencies. He discussed how the agencies presented applicants with workshops and interviews to help them get matched with an agency that best aligns with their areas of interest. Because of his interest in water resources management, Nick selected the Delta Steward Council (DSC) as his agency of choice. Specifically, he was given a position working in their Science Communication Synthesis and Decision Support (SCSDS) team. The DSC is an agency that works to advance the coequal goals of maintaining a reliable water supply for California, while restoring the ecosystem of the Delta. Nick’s work with their SCSDS team is primarily focused on projects that aim to synthesize existing information from disparate sources to create new knowledge and management recommendations.
Two of the projects Nick mentioned, the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and the Bay-Delta Science Conference, also served as opportunities for the students to further their professional development. NCEAS offers workshops designed for early to mid-career scientists that allow them to participate in a synthesis project while also learning pertinent data science concepts and skills. Some of the skills participants could pick up included open science tools for data management, statistics and modeling. The Bay-Delta Science Conference is a biannual conference centered around harnessing the vast knowledge of those working within the field to help create solutions for the challenges currently facing the Delta. It features talks, panels, and posters from a mix of individuals currently working in the federal, state, academic, nonprofit, and public sectors. As conference attendance ranges from early to senior-level scientists, it is a great opportunity for current students to connect with individuals in the industry and to learn about the topical issues the industry is currently facing. For Nick to be working on the Bay-Delta Science Conference team comes full circle; as an MSEM student he got to participate as an attendee to the State of the Estuary conference, where he got introduced to the science teams of local agencies along with other MSEM students.
Nick says that after his fellowship, he hopes to continue working for the DSC, and that he has been contributing to papers he hopes will get published. The guest lecture concluded with students having the opportunity to mingle with Nick and ask him more questions about his work, as well as to get advice on their developing Master’s Projects.
