Expanded Partnerships Lead to Two New Fellowship Opportunities in New York’s Lake Champlain Basin

By Julianna White, Research Program Coordinator (Email the author)
March 02, 2022

The Ausable River Association and the Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute will each host new two-year fellowships beginning in 2022 in a collaboration made possible by Lake Champlain Sea Grant’s expanded fellowship program.

For the past three years, Lake Champlain Sea Grant has partnered with three organizations to support two-year fellowships that provide unique early career training experiences for recent graduates. Previous fellowship partners were The Nature Conservancy and the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps, and there is an ongoing fellowship with Audubon Vermont. Costs to support the fellows are shared between Lake Champlain Sea Grant and the partner organization(s), scopes of work are developed collaboratively, and fellows are members of both teams, thus benefiting from more professional development and mentorship opportunities.

The skills and experience that I gained as a fellow, for example understanding and interacting with multiple departments at both organizations and creating accessible messaging, helped me land a full-time, permanent position,” said Suma Lashof, former Science Communications Fellow and now Donor Relations Manager at The Nature Conservancy in Vermont. “I will continue to utilize and build from this diverse toolkit of skills for the rest of my career.”

Ausable River Association: Science Communications and GIS Analyst Fellowship

The Ausable River Association, a nonprofit conservation organization with a mission of working with communities to protect our streams and lakes, seeks a fellow to support and communicate the work of stream, lake, and floodplain protection and restoration in the Ausable River watershed of upstate New York and neighboring watersheds in the Lake Champlain basin. The fellow will apply advanced GIS data skills to analyze, map, and visualize scientific field data and present it in ways that effectively communicates programs and projects to diverse audiences.

Their work will provide community members, decision-makers, and young adults with practical, science-based information, tools, and methods to help find solutions for challenges to our precious natural water systems and the communities – human and wild – that rely on them,” said Kelley Tucker, Executive Director, Ausable River Association.

Applications for the Science Communications and GIS Analyst Fellowship are due March 18, 2022, and application review and interviews are planned to begin in March.

Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute: Watershed Science and Communications Fellow

The Adirondack Watershed Institute was established in 2003 to protect clean water, conserve habitat, and support the health and well-being of people in the Adirondacks through science, collaboration, and real-world experiences for students. The institute’s vision is that the lakes, rivers, and forests of the Adirondacks support clean water, healthy ecosystems, and vibrant communities whose citizens are inspired and empowered to protect the natural environment.

The Watershed Science Communications Fellow will work with science, education and outreach, and communication teams to plan and deliver activities at Adirondack Water Week, an annual community event that celebrates the region’s water resources. The 2022 event will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, and the 2023 event will focus on healthy communities and watersheds. The fellow will use communication methods—social media, digital storytelling, blogging, virtual programming, interactive web experiences, smart phone-based apps/games—to increase public engagement with science, inspire public stewardship and self-adoption of conservation practices, and gauge and measure success of communication tools. 

The position description and application instructions for this fellowship will be released later this spring.

Science creates knowledge that needs to be translated via engaging and impactful communications to inspire and empower people to protect the natural environment,” said Dan Kelting, Executive Director, Adirondack Watershed Institute. “Our science communications fellow will do just that, and we are excited and grateful for this opportunity provided by Lake Champlain Sea Grant.”