{"id":20259,"date":"2025-04-21T10:31:39","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T14:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/cels\/?p=20259"},"modified":"2025-04-22T10:06:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T14:06:57","slug":"the-state-of-marine-affairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/cels\/news\/the-state-of-marine-affairs\/","title":{"rendered":"Marine Affairs Graduate Students Offer Community, Resources Through New Series"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In challenging times, communities offer invaluable support. Samuel Filiaggi<\/a> and Eva Pumo<\/a>, graduate students in URI\u2019s Department of Marine Affairs<\/a> (MAF), have organized a speaker series designed to foster a community to help navigate the uncertainty that currently surrounds the field. Offering both in-person events and webinars, \u201cThe State of Marine Affairs\u201d connects students, faculty, and alumni within the College of the Environment and Life Sciences<\/a> and Graduate School of Oceanography<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe purpose of this speaker series is to discuss changes within the marine affairs field, prepare ourselves as professionals, and build fellowship,\u201d the invitation to a recent event stated. Filiaggi and Pumo currently serve as graduate student representatives for MAF. While not typically event planning positions, when the department started to feel the effects of a changing national environment, they realized that everyone was facing the same reality: uncertainty. \u201cWe felt like we had to meet the needs of the time,\u201d Pumo says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is bigger than who is in office,\u201d Filiaggi adds. \u201cThere are huge changes coming to the way we do our work, and no matter what you believe or the policies you support, we all need to come to the table and help each other prepare for that.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first event in the series was an in-person roundtable discussion featuring URI faculty members. The second event, a webinar, featured Emily S. Patrolia MAMA \u201816, founder and CEO of ESP Advisors<\/a>, a policy consulting firm helping ocean and coastal organizations navigate the federal government, educate decision makers, and influence U.S. policy. The next webinar will feature Basia Marcks \u201822, who earned her Ph.D. at URI\u2019s Graduate School of Oceanography and is now a Senior Program Director at the Ocean Defense Initiative<\/a>, a nonprofit coordinating federal policy engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The response from students participating in the series has been overwhelmingly positive. \u201cA fellow graduate student told me it felt like group therapy,\u201d Pumo says. \u201cIt\u2019s a reminder that we\u2019re all this together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou walk away feeling energized,\u201d Filiaggi adds. \u201cIt\u2019s important to feel a sense of solidarity, and everyone appreciates the practical tips. There\u2019s a level of soul searching, too. We have to think about why we picked this career path, and why we were interested in this sector. By reexamining that, we realize there are more possibilities for where we can go with our degree than we had ever thought of before.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faculty, alumni, and professionals are equally enthusiastic. \u201cThe Marine Affairs Department\u2019s mission is to train the next generation of scholars and practitioners who will provide leadership for the management of complex coastal and marine environments,\u201d says MAF Chair, Austin Becker. \u201cThe graduate students of today are the positive change makers of tomorrow. The department is immensely proud of the leadership of Sam and Eva in creating this important forum for dialogue, encouragement, and mutual support.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on the positive feedback, Filiaggi and Pumo hope the series will be continued beyond the semester. While the field is inherently responsive to current events, the design of the series establishes a productive forum for navigating them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

URI\u2019s MAF department was the first program of its kind in the nation. Faculty have played a critical historical role in the development of coastal and ocean management programs in the U.S. and abroad, and the curriculum focuses on solutions for today\u2019s global challenges including fisheries management, marine protected areas, ocean justice, coastal hazards, coastal and marine spatial planning, and climate change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMarine Affairs is a three dimensional look at how people interact with the marine environment,\u201d Filiaggi says. \u201cOne dimension is the human side: the social aspect and the economy. One dimension is the environment: the science, fisheries, and natural elements. And the third dimension is law and policy, looking at how all those things come together. We have science and social understandings, but how do we synchronize it together to make effective policy and put science into action for the benefit of both people and the environment?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are interested in attending the next event in \u201cThe State of Marine Affairs\u201d series on April 25th at 2:00pm, please fill out this registration form<\/a> to receive a Zoom link. More information on the webinar is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Offering both in-person events and webinars, \u201cThe State of Marine Affairs\u201d is a new speaker series facilitated by graduate students Samuel Filiaggi and Eva Pumo to connect students, faculty, and alumni within the College of the Environment and Life Sciences and Graduate School of Oceanography.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1089,"featured_media":20262,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/cels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/cels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/cels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/cels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1089"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/cels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20259"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/cels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20273,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/cels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20259\/revisions\/20273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/cels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/cels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/cels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/cels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}