I strongly believe it is the duty of scientists to be involved in the policy making process, particularly with regards to complex issues like climate change. To that end I've been a part of six trips to the halls of Congress and another two to Juneau to help inform our elected officials and their staff about the science of climate change and the value of robust and unfettered science funding. One of those trips occurred after I received the Ecological Society of America's Graduate Student Policy Award.

Why does the world simultaneously contain nutrient-poor degraded lands and nutrient-rich waste streams? In a recent paper with several collaborators from our orange peel project, we point a finger toward a failure of appropriate policy that is downright egregious in an era of rising atmospheric carbon.

As a Princeton Environmental Institute-Science Technology and Environmental Policy Fellow, I had the great fortune of taking a course on trans-boundary environmental issues with Prof. Michael Oppenheimer. As a final project, I examined pathways to turning huge tracts of international waters into de facto marine protected areas, optimizing based on impact on fish populations. I expanded on this project as a dissertation chapter, fulfilling a central requirement of the policy fellowship. Check back soon to see if we were able to get the idea published...