Graduate Research Awards

NPRB offers a program of graduate student research awards to encourage students to pursue scientific and scholarly research that addresses management issues in northern seas.

Award winners for 2010

The Board selected six recipients out of 27 applicants, all of whose proposals had been initially reviewed by the NPRB Science Panel. Each student will receive a $20,000 award to be put toward their research.

Congratulations to ...

• Hannah Voorhees – Ph.D. student, University of Pennsylvania - Cultural and social impacts of environmental co-management in Northwest Alaska: an anthropological study of Inupiaq participation in scientific monitoring of “at risk” subsistence marine mammals
• Julie Raymond-Yakoubian – Ph.D. student, University of Alaska Fairbanks - Salmon and Identity in Alaska's Bering Strait Region
• Matthew Sexson – Ph.D. student, University of Alaska Fairbanks - Spatiotemporal Variation in the Non-Breeding Habitat Use of Spectacled Eiders
• Janelle Mueller – Master’s student, University of Alaska Fairbanks - Effects of the age-composition of spawning sockeye salmon on future returns of sockeye salmon to Bristol Bay, Alaska
• Jory Stariwat – Master’s student, University of British Columbia - Lewis Point, a seasonal subsistence fish camp in transition: Negotiations in a mixed cash/subsistence economy 1980-2011
• Jonathan Richar – Master’s student, University of Alaska Fairbanks - Recruitment mechanisms of the Tanner crab in the eastern Bering Sea

about the awards

NPRB annually presents up to five Graduate Student Research Awards of $20,000 each to qualified masters and doctoral students for the opportunity to address scientific, technological, and socio-economic issues relating to the research themes identified in the NPRB Science Plan of 2005. Students are limited to one $20,000 award per degree.

Winners are chosen by the Board for excellence in graduate-level research. Proposals are initially reviewed by the Science Panel and Advisory Panel. The Board considers comments from these panels when making their final decision to fund graduate research awards.

Eligibility

To be eligible for a Graduate Student Research Award, you must be enrolled in or accepted by a graduate degree program at an accredited university or college. Your graduate research topic must be relevant to the research themes and issues identified in the 2005 NPRB Science Plan. Please see the 2010 GSRA guidelines for further details of the application requirements.

Download the 2010 GSRA Guidelines

Recipients of an NPRB Graduate Student Research Award may not apply for a subsequent award during the course of the same degree, but may be eligible for a second award for the completion of a second graduate degree.

Award funds may be used for:

• graduate student stipend and standard benefits
• tuition or required university fees
• specific research expenses including travel, supplies, laboratory analyses, etc.

Indirect costs are not allowed. One hundred percent of the funds must be used for the benefit of the graduate student who will determine how the funds are divided among the allowable uses.

For more information

Contact Carrie Eischens by phone at 907-644-6712 or via e-mail.

Past Award winners

Click column headings to sort.

Year	Name	Degree	University	Topic	Title
2009*	Nathan Jones	MS	San Jose State Univ / Moss Landing Marine Labs, CA	seabirds	Foraging dynamics of thick-billed murres in the Bering Sea
2009*	Megan Winton	MS	San Jose State Univ / Moss Landing Marine Labs, CA	fishes and invertebrates	Age, growth, and demography of the roughtail skate from the eastern Bering Sea, with a revised model from the west coast of the United States using histology
2009*	Jill-Marie Seymour	MS	Univ Alaska Fairbanks	marine mammals	Pacific walrus feeding ecology and possible links to trichinellosis
2009*	Rachael Orben	MS	Univ California Santa Cruz	seabirds	Winter distribution and ecology of black-legged kittiwakes and thick-billed murres breeding at three Bering Sea colonies with differing population trends
2009*	Helen Esch	PhD	MA Inst Technology / Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst	marine mammals	Monitoring marine mammal occurrence in the Bering Sea using passive acoustics
2009*	Jodie Pirtle	PhD	Univ Alaska Fairbanks	fishes and invertebrates	Nursery habitat, predation, and survival of early benthic phase red king crab
2008	Liz Atwood	MS	Univ Washington	lower trophic levels	Influence of coastal-origin mesoscale eddies on ichthyoplankton assemblages in the Gulf of Alaska
2008	Shannon O'Brien	MS	Univ Washington	fishes and invertebrates	Impacts of climate change on pacific sleeper sharks and co-occuring benthic shark species, spiny dogfish and bluetnose sixgill sharks, as revealed by DNA sequences
2008	Mary Hunsicker	PhD	Univ Washington	fishes and invertebrates	Evaluating the trophic role of the commander squid, Berryteuthis magister, and the factors regulating squid abundance in the eastern Bering Sea continental slope ecosystem
2008	Markus Janout	PhD	Univ Alaska Fairbanks	atmosphere and ocean	Atmospheric and oceanic contribution on ocean temperatures in the northern Gulf of Alaska
2008	Rebecca Young	PhD	Univ Alaska Fairbanks	seabirds	Development of molecular techniques for monitoring demographic structure of Bering Sea seabird populations

*Due to special circumstances, a sixth award was funded in 2009.