Welcome, Nani!
Veronica (Nani) is a new Graduate Research Assistant with IAN in Annapolis, Maryland where she will be working on visually representing indicators for the 2023 Chesapeake Bay Report Card. She got her B.A. in Marine Affairs, Geology, and Anthropology with a minor in Art from the University of Miami. A Plus One recipient, she was funded for a year to study Journalism and Film. From 2019-2022, Veronica worked as a NOAA contractor for both the Northeast and Southeast Fisheries Science Centers. During this time, her work focused on science communication. She pioneered projects such as video creation and outreach projects for underserved communities. Currently, she is a first year PhD student studying Environment and Society at the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science.
Welcome, Stacy!
Stacy Schaefer is the new executive director of the Resilience Authority of Charles County, which has partnered with UMCES and Maryland Department of Natural Resources Chesapeake and Coastal Service. Stacy Schaefer holds a bachelor's degree in business, and a Juris Doctorate degree from the George Washington University National Law Center. After ten years of practicing law in Washington, D.C., Ms. Schaefer transitioned to a career as the Associate Director for Land Conservation with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources from 2009 to 2021. Most recently, Ms. Schaefer served as the Maryland Land Conservation Liaison for Resource Environmental Solutions (RES), an ecological restoration firm that works across the country. She is also a current Board member of the City of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Resilience Authority and a lead team member of The Nature Conservancy’s Coastal Resiliency Framework project.
Upcoming travel
This month, both the PacPath and COAST Card Projects will be traveling abroad!
For PacPath, Annie Carew and Heath Kelsey will be traveling to Suva, Fiji to hold a 3-day workshop at the University of the South Pacific. This workshop will include discussions about the effects of climate change on key environmental resources with important stakeholders. This will be the second PacPath workshop, with the first taking place in Noumea, New Caledonia in October 2022.
The US COAST Card team (Sidney Anderson, Veronica Lucchese, Vanessa Vargas-Nguyen, and Bill Dennison) will be traveling to Manila, Philippines to hold their first in-person meeting with other global members of the COAST Card project and with key stakeholders to focus on sustainability issues of Manila Bay.
Farewell, Sky!
Last month, we said goodbye to our assistant science communicator, Sky Swanson. Sky has worked with IAN for the past 4 years on many projects, including the USGS Chesapeake Bay Science Strategy, the Chesapeake Bay SAV Watchers program, the NPS Assateague Island videos, and report cards for the Chesapeake Bay and Mississippi River Watershed. Sky was a great, very talented colleague to work with. We will miss him greatly and wish him the best in his future endeavors.