{"id":897,"date":"2023-05-25T13:43:57","date_gmt":"2023-05-25T17:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.seagrant.w3.uvm.edu\/2023\/05\/25\/my-first-year-as-a-fellow\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T17:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T21:49:07","slug":"my-first-year-as-a-fellow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/2023\/05\/25\/my-first-year-as-a-fellow\/","title":{"rendered":"My First Year as a Fellow"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOn May 2nd,\u00a0I\u00a0completed\u00a0the first year of\u00a0my\u00a0two-year GIS & Science Communications\u00a0fellowship\u00a0with the Ausable River Association\u00a0(AsRA) <\/a>and\u00a0Lake Champlain Sea Grant (LCSG).LCSG\u2019s\u00a0fellows\u00a0program began in 2015 and\u00a0offers\u00a0the opportunity for\u00a0early career professionals to work and grow at a host organization within the Lake Champlain Basin.\u00a0My\u00a0fellowship focuses on communicating the threats facing water resources in the Ausable and Lake Champlain basins and the work AsRA and LCSG\u00a0are doing\u00a0to address\u00a0them.\u00a0I\u2019ve learned so much\u00a0in the first half of my fellowship and have been part of some amazing work.\u00a0Here are some of the\u00a0conservation efforts\u00a0I\u2019m proud to have\u00a0supported\u00a0in my first year.<\/p>\n

\n\tGIS\u00a0(Mapping)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the key components of my role is to support the work of AsRA and LCSG with my mapping expertise.\u00a0Visualizing data through maps can be a helpful way to communicate place-based work. Over the past year, I\u2019ve assisted our program staff with a variety of projects\u2014from showing detections of Brook Trout eDNA across the watershed, to showing where on the East Branch Ausable River AsRA is restoring next, to giving landscape context to our water quality monitoring work.<\/p>\n

\n\tNow that I\u2019m more familiar with our work, I have begun working on some larger projects.\u00a0I\u2019m close to putting the final touches on a virtual tour of AsRA\u2019s river restoration work. Keep an eye out for that\u2014I\u2019m really looking forward to\u00a0sharing it.\u00a0Once that is finalized, I\u2019ll be working on a similar project,\u00a0highlighting\u00a0AsRA\u2019s culvert\u00a0replacement\u00a0work.<\/p>\n

\n\tCommunications\n
\n
\n
\n\"Poster
\n\n<\/picture><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI am a\u00a0part of AsRA\u2019s small but mighty communications team. While my coworker Madison Stroud\u00a0handles most of the management of our print publications, I\u00a0oversee\u00a0our digital communications.\u00a0Across\u00a0social media,\u00a0our website\u00a0and\u00a0our\u00a0weekly\u00a0e-Newsletter,\u00a0I\u00a0work\u00a0to keep our messaging consistent, effective, and up\u00a0to date.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tEngaging with the Public<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWhile a lot of my communications work happens behind a computer, I\u2019ve also had\u00a0the opportunity to get involved with in-person outreach. \u00a0I\u2019ve represented AsRA and LCSG at a number of events, from\u00a0river cleanups to K-12 youth education programs to\u00a0mall takeovers to fishing competitions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLast June, I took over the management of our popular\u00a0watershed\u00a0tours and have been leading the program ever since. In 2022, we held 15 tours on a variety of topics that were attended by over 150 participants.\u00a0My involvement\u00a0with\u00a0the tours has\u00a0given me the opportunity to write my first grant for AsRA, the largest grant I\u2019ve ever written.\u00a0We were thrilled\u00a0that we were\u00a0recently awarded\u00a0this\u00a0grant\u00a0from the Lake Champlain Basin Program\u00a0and can continue to host tours for another year.\u00a0I\u2019m working hard to plan another great\u00a0set\u00a0of tours this year. Stay tuned for an announcement about dates and topics.<\/p>\n

\n\t\n
\n
\n
\n\"A
\n\n<\/picture>Tech Support<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tSince joining AsRA, I\u2019ve somehow become the tech support person. While I wouldn\u2019t say that I know a ton about technology, I\u2019m not afraid to jump in and try\u00a0to\u00a0fix something (or\u00a0spend a few hours on YouTube learning\u00a0how to fix it). Though often frustrating, this work can be incredibly satisfying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFiguring out how to improve or better use our existing technology has also become a facet of my position. Most recently, I earned my drone pilot\u2019s\u00a0license and am looking forward to figuring out better ways to use\u00a0AsRA\u2019s\u00a0drone\u00a0to support\u00a0our river restoration work.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAssisting with Field Work<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the reasons I chose to enter the field of\u00a0environmental science\u00a0was my love of the outdoors and being outside. While\u00a0my position is mostly\u00a0office-based, I really enjoy the opportunity to join our staff\u00a0in the field\u00a0and give them an extra hand with their work.\u00a0When I do, it\u00a0also\u00a0helps me understand our programs and communicate this work to the public.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s a wrap on year one!\u00a0I\u2019ve learned so much over the\u00a0past year and look forward to\u00a0seeing\u00a0what the second half of my\u00a0fellowship\u00a0holds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On May 2nd,\u00a0I\u00a0completed\u00a0the first year of\u00a0my\u00a0two-year GIS & Science Communications\u00a0fellowship\u00a0with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1541,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1218,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions\/1218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}