2001 State Fellow a Social Scientist for Great Lakes Commission
Self-portrait of Becky Lameka near Cannery Row in Monterey.
February 2007 – Rebecca Lameka, a California Sea Grant State Fellow at the California Resources Agency in 2001, is a program specialist at the Great Lakes Commission in Ann Arbor, Mich.
She works within its Transportation and Sustainable Development Program, conducting social science research on coastal management issues of relevance to the Great Lakes.
One of her newest projects is to survey local municipalities to determine their level of investment in protecting and restoring the Great Lakes. She has had longer commitments collecting social science data for studying connections between land-use policies, recreational boating and dredging on Great Lakes ecosystem health.
Dredging was a topic she also studied while working under Brian Baird, head of the oceans program at the Resources Agency. “At the time, California was looking at how to develop regional sediment management plans,” Lameka said. “My main project was to inventory shoreline erosion policies for other U.S. coastal states, which helped inform the development of a state shoreline erosion policy for California.”
Lameka began her current position immediately after finishing her California Sea Grant State Fellowship in 2002.
“The fellowship absolutely helped me get the job,” she said. Those interviewing her, she said, were impressed by her experience working at a state-level agency with different state agencies and stakeholder groups on a specific issue. “The fellowship was a really good experience in establishing relationships with people wearing different hats.”
Lameka, a native Midwesterner, was a French studies major as an undergraduate at Purdue University in Indiana. She earned a master’s in international environmental policy, with a coastal management focus, at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California.
Both degrees are serving her well in Michigan. “I’ve worked on projects with
French-speaking Canadians,” she said, and she continues to apply what she learned at graduate school in designing new survey methods. Though she no longer studies marine issues, Lameka remains involved with coastal issues, as Michigan is surrounded by four of the five Great Lakes. The people adore their coast the same as in California, she said.
Contact info
Program Specialist
Great Lakes Commission
Eisenhower Corporate Park
2805 South Industrial Hwy., Suite 100
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-6791
PH: 734-971-9135
FAX: 734-971-9150
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