Experiences of a State Fellow at the NOAA’s MPA Center in Monterey
2006 California Sea Grant State Fellow Robert “BJ” Atanasio.
Credit: P. Bollwinkel
January 2007 – Robert Atanasio spent his 2006 California Sea Grant State Fellowship with NOAA National Marine Protected Areas Center in Monterey, helping to build a framework for monitoring human activities in the marine environment.
“My job was to collect existing data sets that would allow the center to show patterns of human use off California, Oregon and Washington,” Atanasio said. Results from this work led to a contract with the California Marine Life Protection Act Initiative to perform similar, more detailed analyses, along the North Central Coast. These detailed analyses will be used as a reference point for measuring changes in human use patterns once the North Central Coast marine reserve system goes into effect. In other words, they are a “before” picture or baseline view of the region.
“I've always had an interest in using MPAs as a tool for marine resource conservation and management,” Atanasio said. “Even when I was doing graduate work, I chose course work and projects that would expose me to more of these ideas.”
Atanasio earned a master's in environmental science from San Jose State University in 2006. His thesis examined a fishing cooperative formed by small-scale fishers in Panama to protect the resource and their livelihoods.
“After graduating, I was job searching and not getting anything,” Atanasio said, explaining his decision to apply for a State Fellowship. “I thought the fellowship would be a great way to get my foot in the door and work on the issues and in a field I was interested in.”
For him, the State Fellowship was an opportunity to learn professional skills not taught in school. Environmental resource management is a very competitive field, he said. “It is so tied in with budgets and budgetary priorities at any moment. The fellowship forced me to learn how to promote my ideas and to garner support to pursue them.”
It also taught teamwork. One of my mentors was a social scientist at NOAA’s National MPA Center in Silver Spring, Md., he said. “I had to learn to work on a team and how to work effectively, even when the team is geographically spread out. Things like the internet and telephone conferencing were really important.”
Atanasio’s fellowship ended in September 2006. He has since successfully written a grant to continue his research into 2007. He is currently looking for other funding sources.
Long-term, Atanasio said he would like to work at a non-profit organization as a project manager. Ideally, his projects would involve conducting research and implementing its findings.
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