Degree program: M.A.M.A
Year accepted: 2025
Advisor: TBD
Research:  Conservation, education, stewardship
Background: B.A. Psychology, Minor Latin American Caribbean Studies, Muhlenberg College

Profile:

Madeleine Kemo, Marine Affairs Master’s Degree student, connects her research and process-driven experience, adaptability, and educator skills to study effective behavior change through conservation education. She believes that by engaging people, especially youth, to understand how their actions affect the ocean and impact climate change, people will feel empowered and motivated to conserve these spaces.

Madeleine holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Muhlenberg College. Her senior thesis focused on the mechanisms of learning and memory, and how memories may be activated to alter implicit bias. Her research experience gave practice to developing studies from start to end, encoding and analyzing data, and writing academic research papers. Madeleine’s experiences as an educator in Spain and as a Research Assistant for the New England Addiction Technology Transfer Center at Brown University have supported her ability to connect and disseminate complex information.

The ocean is Madeleine’s peaceful space. From being thrown by her dad into the waves of the New Jersey shore, to seeing an octopus in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, these memories became her call to action, and led her to the Ocean State. Today, Madeleine sees a reef rapidly changing in response to pollution and climate change, knows barriers that prevent people from accessing the ocean, and is energized by the opportunity to make positive changes through effective conservation learning.