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Jessica Gephart is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Aquatic and Fisheries Science at the University of Washington. She received her PhD in Environmental Science from the University of Virginia and was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC). She served on the Scientific Leadership Team for of the Blue Food Assessment, where she co-led the environment and justice chapters and currently serves as a U.S. Science Envoy for the U.S. Department of State. Her research focuses on the intersection of seafood globalization and environmental change, evaluating how seafood trade drives distant environmental impacts, as well as how environmental shocks disrupt seafood trade. Much of her work involves collaborations with interdisciplinary and international teams, including at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, and the Food and Agriculture Organization. Collectively, her work aims to identify opportunities to improve sustainability and resilience within the increasingly globalized food system.
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Althea Marks is a data scientist whose professional origins are rooted in environmental science, water quality, fisheries, marine ecology, and field work. She completed her Master's research at California State University Fullerton investigating the in situ water filtration functions of native Olympia oyster habitat and Pacific oyster aquaculture. During this research she was inspired by the vast potential and value of data management, reproducible workflows, and open-science. In 2022 she was a Data Science Fellow at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) where she honed her expertise in Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse (FAIR) of digital assets. When she isn't tinkering on the computer she may be in the mountains exploring via various modes of human powered transportation.
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Rahul Agrawal Bejarano is currently a data scientist at the University of Michigan. He received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan in Computer Science and his Masters degree from the University of Michigan in Sustainable Systems. He then worked for the Seafood Globalization Lab, based at American University. He sees great potential in the power of big data and collaborative teamwork to answer global environmental questions.
Students
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Connor Quiroz is a University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences graduate student who enjoys finding meaning in data, particularly data important to direct human well-being and health including food security and nutrition. He is currently conducting research to disentangle data disparities in global seafood trade to ensure more reliable, robust environmental/economic assessments on national seafood consumption. He believes that we will never obtain the truth about a system or process, but through thoughtful statistics and data science practices, we can make good estimates of the truth, thereby bettering human lives. During his free time, he enjoys running, cooking, spending time with family and friends, and coming up with bad puns, particularly ones about seafood and statistics!
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Joining the lab
I will be recruiting PhD students through the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences (SAFS) for students starting Fall 2024. You can read more about the Masters and PhD programs here. You may also want to look into the Quantitative Ecology & Resource Management (QERM) graduate program.
Stay tuned for postdoc and a data scientist position in the lab. If you would like to co-develop a postdoctoral grant application, get in touch.
Expectations for prospective students: Our lab primarily uses modeling and data synthesis approaches to understand the role of aquatic foods in sustainable and resilient systems. Therefore, a strong background in mathematics, statistics, and programming, and/or a desire to build those skills, is important. Our lab values open science and all students are expected to develop skills creating reproducible work. We also regularly work with researchers from across the natural and social sciences, so students are expected to be open minded about other approaches to scientific understanding. Finally, please review our lab code of conduct.
Funding: All graduate students at SAFS (and QERM) are fully funded, usually on fellowships, teaching assistantships, or most commonly research assistantships (RAs). RAs pay a monthly stipend, provide a tuition waiver, and include health insurance, and are paid from a grant. Obtaining funding for your graduate studies is therefore very important, but research grants are highly competitive. Students who secure a fellowship will have much more freedom to focus on their own projects without grant funding requirements. SAFS does offer a few fellowships each year, which do not need to be applied for and the QERM program, which involves a rigorous math/stats/applied math set of courses in the first three quarters, also funds students for those three quarters.
Moving forward: If you are interested in joining the lab, please email me with: (1) your CV, (2) unofficial transcripts, (3) a couple of paragraphs about your research interests, skills, abilities, and career goals, (4) a short statement about your math, statistics, and programming background, and (5) a recent written example of your work. It is helpful for you to tell me a bit about your background, why you are interested in working with us, and what kinds of research interest you. Note that out of fairness to all applications, I do not make any final decisions about extending offers to incoming students until Jan of the year of admission once I know the status of my research grants and have viewed all relevant applications.
To apply: Send your application in to SAFS (and/or QERM) by the deadline, mentioning my name as an advisor you are interested in working with. Prospective students will normally be invited to the prospective student day in late February to meet with advisors in person and explore SAFS, the University of Washington, and the Seattle surroundings.
I will be recruiting PhD students through the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences (SAFS) for students starting Fall 2024. You can read more about the Masters and PhD programs here. You may also want to look into the Quantitative Ecology & Resource Management (QERM) graduate program.
Stay tuned for postdoc and a data scientist position in the lab. If you would like to co-develop a postdoctoral grant application, get in touch.
Expectations for prospective students: Our lab primarily uses modeling and data synthesis approaches to understand the role of aquatic foods in sustainable and resilient systems. Therefore, a strong background in mathematics, statistics, and programming, and/or a desire to build those skills, is important. Our lab values open science and all students are expected to develop skills creating reproducible work. We also regularly work with researchers from across the natural and social sciences, so students are expected to be open minded about other approaches to scientific understanding. Finally, please review our lab code of conduct.
Funding: All graduate students at SAFS (and QERM) are fully funded, usually on fellowships, teaching assistantships, or most commonly research assistantships (RAs). RAs pay a monthly stipend, provide a tuition waiver, and include health insurance, and are paid from a grant. Obtaining funding for your graduate studies is therefore very important, but research grants are highly competitive. Students who secure a fellowship will have much more freedom to focus on their own projects without grant funding requirements. SAFS does offer a few fellowships each year, which do not need to be applied for and the QERM program, which involves a rigorous math/stats/applied math set of courses in the first three quarters, also funds students for those three quarters.
Moving forward: If you are interested in joining the lab, please email me with: (1) your CV, (2) unofficial transcripts, (3) a couple of paragraphs about your research interests, skills, abilities, and career goals, (4) a short statement about your math, statistics, and programming background, and (5) a recent written example of your work. It is helpful for you to tell me a bit about your background, why you are interested in working with us, and what kinds of research interest you. Note that out of fairness to all applications, I do not make any final decisions about extending offers to incoming students until Jan of the year of admission once I know the status of my research grants and have viewed all relevant applications.
To apply: Send your application in to SAFS (and/or QERM) by the deadline, mentioning my name as an advisor you are interested in working with. Prospective students will normally be invited to the prospective student day in late February to meet with advisors in person and explore SAFS, the University of Washington, and the Seattle surroundings.
Past lab members
Philip Maxson (2023-2024) - Undergraduate, Russia seafood import ban; US consumption of catfish
Colby Belmarsh (2023) - Undergraduate, US consumption of blue crab
Bhamini Jain (2023) - Research assistant, Trade-offs in food systems
Parthav Easwar (2022-2023) - Undergraduate, Food trade in Kiribati
Joseph Barnes (2022-2023) - Graduate, Trade of threatened species
Hannah Cohen (2022) - Undergraduate, Salmon disease and trade
Aileen McDonald (2021) - Undergraduate, Coral bleaching and aquarium trade
Piper Kohlenberger (2022) - Undergraduate, Dungeness crab fishery closures
Lily Fowler (2022) - Undergraduate, Farmed versus wild salmon trade
TreVaugh Ellis (2022) - Undergraduate, Measures of market integration
Dakoury Godo-Solo (2021) - Undergraduate, Environmental threats to blue food production
Juan Pablo Zamanillo (2021) - Graduate, Data science practicum project
Jorid Topi (2021) - Graduate, Data science practicum project
Anna Ross (2020-2022) - Undergraduate, Spillover effects of HABs in Florida
Erik Lovece (2020-2021) - Graduate, Patterns in historic appearances of seafood on menus
Alan Nurcahyo (2020) - Graduate, Data science practicum project
Nitya Aggarwal 2020) - Undergraduate, Country trade profiles
Jesse Cross (2020-2021) - Undergraduate, University food waste and greenhouse gas emissions
Kelvin Gorospe (2020-2022) - Lab data scientist
Philip Maxson (2023-2024) - Undergraduate, Russia seafood import ban; US consumption of catfish
Colby Belmarsh (2023) - Undergraduate, US consumption of blue crab
Bhamini Jain (2023) - Research assistant, Trade-offs in food systems
Parthav Easwar (2022-2023) - Undergraduate, Food trade in Kiribati
Joseph Barnes (2022-2023) - Graduate, Trade of threatened species
Hannah Cohen (2022) - Undergraduate, Salmon disease and trade
Aileen McDonald (2021) - Undergraduate, Coral bleaching and aquarium trade
Piper Kohlenberger (2022) - Undergraduate, Dungeness crab fishery closures
Lily Fowler (2022) - Undergraduate, Farmed versus wild salmon trade
TreVaugh Ellis (2022) - Undergraduate, Measures of market integration
Dakoury Godo-Solo (2021) - Undergraduate, Environmental threats to blue food production
Juan Pablo Zamanillo (2021) - Graduate, Data science practicum project
Jorid Topi (2021) - Graduate, Data science practicum project
Anna Ross (2020-2022) - Undergraduate, Spillover effects of HABs in Florida
Erik Lovece (2020-2021) - Graduate, Patterns in historic appearances of seafood on menus
Alan Nurcahyo (2020) - Graduate, Data science practicum project
Nitya Aggarwal 2020) - Undergraduate, Country trade profiles
Jesse Cross (2020-2021) - Undergraduate, University food waste and greenhouse gas emissions
Kelvin Gorospe (2020-2022) - Lab data scientist
Student and postdoc resources
Forms
The lab's semester goals form can be downloaded here.
Student funding
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
NOAA Nancy Foster Fellowship
NMFS Sea Grant Joint Fellowship Program
Ford Foundation Fellowship
Postdoctoral funding
NSF SBE Postdoctoral Fellowship
Smith Fellowship
L'Oréal USA For Women in Science Fellowship
Forms
The lab's semester goals form can be downloaded here.
Student funding
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
NOAA Nancy Foster Fellowship
NMFS Sea Grant Joint Fellowship Program
Ford Foundation Fellowship
Postdoctoral funding
NSF SBE Postdoctoral Fellowship
Smith Fellowship
L'Oréal USA For Women in Science Fellowship
