The 2008 Maryland recipient of a Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship is Terra Lederhouse, a graduate student in Marine-Estuarine-Environmental Studies (MEES) at the University of Maryland College Park. She will work in the NOAA Fisheries Office of International Affairs. The fellowship, established in 1979, is coordinated by the National Sea Grant Office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Named for John A. Knauss, a former NOAA administrator, the program provides graduate students across the country with an opportunity to spend a one-year paid fellowship working with policy and science experts in Washington, D.C.

Lederhouse will work on international fisheries issues, including the International Whaling Commission and the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas. Her main project will focus on the emerging development assistance program which provides aid to countries currently developing their own fisheries monitoring programs.

As a MEES graduate student, Lederhouse has worked with with Dr. Kennedy Paynter, studying how energy moves through restored oyster reefs by measuring the biomass and lipid production of a small fish called the naked goby. She plans to finish her M.S. in 2008. She is also currently working as program manager for the non-profit Oyster Recovery Partnership in Annapolis, where she coordinates all their restoration and outreach programs in the Chesapeake Bay.

Lederhouse received a B.S. in biology and environmental policy in 2003 from Union College, in Schenectady, New York. As an undergraduate, she studied the commercial fishing industries in the U.S., Bermuda, and Newfoundland, Canada; she also conducted research projects on marine snails and on the link between climate change and increasing jellyfish populations.

Knauss Fellowships run from February 1 to January 31 and pay a stipend of $33,000 plus $7000 for health insurance, moving, and travel.They are awarded through Sea Grant programs across the nation. For more information about Knauss fellowships, visit Maryland Sea Grant at www.mdsg.umd.edu/policy/knauss, and the National Sea Grant office at www.seagrant.noaa.gov/knauss.

This page was last modified September 15, 2018