Anna Davis (ECOL, Ph.D. ‘21) graduated summa cum laude (4.0 cum GPA) with Honors. During her stay in the MEES program, she had authored or co-authored three peer reviewed papers on the impact of hypoxia (low-levels of dissolved oxygen) in the Chesapeake Bay on oyster populations as well as won numerous awards including the prestigious Knauss Marine Policy Fellow in 2013 and the Jane Pritchard Teaching Award in 2016.
Alterra Sanchez (CHEM, ‘Ph.D ‘21) entered the MEES Graduate Program with an impressive breadth of experience and awards. As an undergraduate at San Diego State University, Alterra was one of only thirty applicants to be accepted into the Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) program, which only accepts about ten honors students per year! Alterra went on to intern in the summer of 2013 at the prestigious Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and presented her research at the California Statewide research competition in 2013 through the Research Experience for Undergraduates program. Since entering the MEES Graduate Program, advised by Dr. Michael Gonsior (UMCES), Alterra won an award for every year she was in the program: CMNS Dean’s Fellowship (2016, 2019, 2020), The 2020 MEES Colloquium Student Poster Award, the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021), the Reid Evans Menzer Memorial Summer Research Fellowship (2020), as well as the CRSSA Grant in 2021. Alterra graduated with her Ph.D. in Fall 2021 with a 3.888 cumulative GPA and now works as the Lead Senior Scientist at Sonoma Works conducting product headspace analysis for terpenes and residual solvents via GC-MS, and HPLC-MS/MS analysis for pesticides and mycotoxins. For more information on Alterra, please click here.
Suzanne Webster (Spitzer) (E&S, Ph.D. ‘21) graduated summa cum laude (cumulative GPA 3.972) earning her Ph.D. in Fall 2021. This University of Notre Dame grad had already published two peer reviewed journal articles as an undergraduate prior to entering the program, as well as given almost thirty presentations across the country at various conferences and written nearly 40 articles on science communication. While in the MEES program, Suzanne twice received the award for Outstanding Graduate Assistant from the University of Maryland Graduate School (2018, 2020), been awarded the Debbie-Morrin Nordlund Memorial Travel Award (2017), the Dean's Fellowship (2017), and in 2020 was awarded a Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship which placed her in NOAA's Technology Partnerships Office as their first Stakeholder Engagement and Communications Specialist. In her final semester Suzanne Webster was awarded the Anne G. Wylie Fellowship (Fall 2021).
Chelsea Wegner Koch (E&O, Ph.D. ‘21) entered the MEES Ph.D. Program in Fall 2017 with the Dean's Fellowship and graduated four years later summa cum laude in Fall 2021 with a perfect 4.0 cumulative GPA. Prior to entering the program, she was awarded the Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship in 2014, and was placed in the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs in the US Antarctic Program (contracted by Lockheed Martin). She presented her dissertation research results at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in both 2019 and 2020, and she received the best poster presentation award for a Ph.D. student at the 2019 meeting. She was awarded one of six nationwide North Pacific Research Board (NPRB) Graduate Student Fellowships in 2019 and provided an oral presentation at the Ocean Science Meeting in San Diego, the APECS Science-Policy Workshop, in Reykjavik, Iceland in October 2019 and the Gordon Research Seminar in Lucca, Italy in March 2019. Chelsea is currently working with UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission as a Contract Science Officer in Ile de France, France.