The Steven Berkeley Marine Conservation Fellowship

This fellowship was created by AFS in 2007 to honor the memory of Steven Berkeley, a dedicated fisheries scientist with a passionate interest in integrating the fields of marine ecology, conservation biology, and fisheries science to improve fisheries management. Steve was a long-time member of AFS and a member of the first Board of Directors of the Fisheries Conservation Foundation. The fellowship comprises a competitively based $15,000 award to a graduate student actively engaged in thesis research relevant to marine conservation. Research topics may address any aspect of conservation; a focus on fisheries issues is not required.

Requirements for application:

1. The applicant must be a student officially accepted or currently enrolled in a M.S. or Ph.D. program at a North American university.
2. The student must be actively engaged in thesis research related to some aspect of marine conservation; the intent of the award is to support ongoing research costs.
3. The student must be a member of AFS in good standing; membership can be obtained at the time of application submission.

Application package:

1. Cover letter: Your cover letter must include your current e-mail address, current mailing address, daytime phone number, and AFS membership number.
2. Resume, including the following:
   • Educational history: degrees, relevant courses completed, grade point averages
   • Professional experience: positions held with description of responsibilities, including any volunteer activities
   • Publications: including ‘gray literature’ contributions
   • Presentations: including oral presentations, posters, and those presented by co-authors (as acknowledged)
   • Transcripts (unofficial) of undergraduate and graduate coursework should be attached.
3. Research proposal, limited to 4 pages (excluding title page, abstract, references, tables and figures), single spaced, 11 pt font or higher. Proposals should be organized in the following format:
   • Title page and abstract: including research area, all contact information, and advisor’s name and affiliation, abstract of 300 words or less outlining major objectives and rationale of research program
   • Introduction: providing a clear background of need for the research project and justification, any specific hypotheses or objectives, and description of how fellowship funds will be used.
   • Methods
   • Preliminary or anticipated results
   • Significance of research for the field of marine conservation
   • References
4. Three letters of recommendation, one of which must be from the student’s major advisor. Letters should address the relevance of the thesis research to marine conservation, the academic qualifications of the applicant, and anticipated future scientific contributions by the applicant. Letters of recommendation must be sent directly to Lauren Maza at [email protected]. The file names for all letters of recommendation should be constructed as follows: applicant’s last name, applicant’s first name, “RL by,” Author’s name, year e.g., “Doe, Jon RL by Tom Jones 2020.”

Application address and deadline:

Complete applications (except letters of reference which are to be sent separately) should be compiled into a single PDF or Word document and emailed directly to Lauren Maza at [email protected].  The file name for all applications should be constructed as follows: applicant’s last name, applicant’s first name, “Application,” year, e.g., “Doe, Jon Application 2020.”

Applications must be emailed by February 1 of each year.

Criteria for selection:

The fellowship will be awarded on the basis of the relevance of the proposed research, academic achievement, and anticipated future contributions by the applicant. Submission of an application acknowledges the applicant’s acceptance of the committee’s decision as final.

Public announcement and notification:

The fellowship recipient will be notified and the award granted by June 1 of each year. Public announcement will be made at the annual AFS meeting and in Fisheries magazine. Publications that result from research supported by the award should recognize the specific support of the fellowship as well as that of AFS.

Previous Steven Berkeley Marine Conservation Fellowship Awards:

Year	Winner	Runners up
2024	Olivia Dinkelacker, University of Massachusetts Amherst	Annie Innes-Gold, University of Hawaii Manoa
		Lauren Kashiwabara, Oregon State University
2023	Benjamin Glass, University of Pennsylvania	Claire Rosemond, Oregon State University
		James Garner, University of Massachusetts Amherst
2022	Ben Farmer, Louisiana State University	Celeste Kieran, Simon Fraser University
2021	Mary Fisher, University of Washington	Grace Casselberry, University of Massachusetts Amherst
		John Bohórquez, Stony Brook University
2020	John Swenson, University of Massachusetts, Amherst	Carissa Gervasi, Florida International University
		Victoria Quennessen, Oregon State University
2019	Jason Toy, University of California, Santa Cruz	Patrick Charapata, Baylor University
		Heather Stewart, McGill University
2018	Samantha Wilson, Simon Fraser University	Jason Selwyn, Texas A&M University
2017	Brendan Runde, North Carolina State University	Sara Schaal, Northeastern University
		Megan Winton, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
2016	Wendel Raymond, University of Alaska-Fairbanks	Camrin Braun, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
		Katrina Cook, University of British Columbia
2015	Jacob Brownscombe, Carleton University	Dustin Chen, University of San Diego
		Gayathiri Gnanalingam, Old Dominion University
		Katherine Silliman, University of Chicago
2014	Cassandra Benkwitt, Oregon State University	Nathan Furey, University of British Columbia
		Marissa McMahan, Northeastern University
2013	Christian William Conroy, Northeastern University	Alex Filous, University of Hawaii
		Alexis Jackson, University of California, Santa Cruz
2012	Tony Spitzak, Washington State University	Caitlin Cleaver, University of Maine
		Geoffrey Smith, University of Florida
2011	Valentina Di Santo, Boston University	Lewis Barnett, University of California Davis
		Pablo Granados-Dieseldorff, Texas A&M University
2010	Kristina Cammen, Duke University	Justin Perrault, Florida Atlantic University
		Hollie Putnam, University of Hawai’i at Manoa
2009	Aleksandra Maljkovic, Simon Fraser University	Jack Kittinger, University of Hawai’i at Manoa
		Annie Schmidt, University of California Davis
2008	Adam Peer, University of Maryland	Keith Dunton, Stony Brook University
		Mandy Karnauskas, University of Miami

 

Adam Peer (University of Maryland) receiving the Steven Berkeley Marine Conservation Fellowship from Susan Sogard in its inaugural year of 2008.