MIT Sea Grant News & Updates

A collage of photographs including a lobster, whale tail, a group standing in water, dune grass, and students launching a Miniboat.

MIT Sea Grant News + Updates

WINTER 2024

STREAM Grants | MIT Sea Grant Announces 11 Funded Projects

MIT Sea Grant has awarded a new cohort of STREAM Grants with a focus on coastal education and community science.

2024 STREAM Grant Projects:

Catch of the Day Youth Environmental Education (Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, Project Lead: Kristen Barry)

Community Science on the North Shore: A New Coastal Volunteer Program (Massachusetts Audubon Society, Project Lead: David Moon)

Crafting a Vessel for Tomorrow’s Environmental Guardians (Hull Lifesaving Museum, Project Lead: Michael McGurl)

Empowering Student Citizen Scientists: Miniboat Program for Global Ocean Stewardship (Dudley Middle School, Project Lead: Stacy Lynch)

Examining Percent Coverage of Ammophila Breviligulata Using Ground Truthing, UAVs, and Machine Learning (Cohasset Center for Student Coastal Research, Project Lead: Susan Bryant)

Expanding Understanding of Ocean Acidification to Elementary Schools – Video and Material Kits (SEED - Science & Engineering Education Development, Inc., Project Leads: Sandra Pearl, Elizabeth Bless)

Exploring Tag-Derived Whale Locomotion and Behavioral Sequence Data with the General Public, Children, and the Blind and Visually-Impaired through Music and 3-D Sculpture Multi-modal Models (Sound Explorations, Project Leads: Terry Wolkowicz, David Wiley/NOAA)

Exploring the Unique History and Ecology of Penikese Island (Falmouth Public Schools, Project Lead: Carmela Mayeski)

WHALE ID: Increasing Accessibility in Marine Science and Conservation through Pattern Recognition (Whale and Dolphin Conservation, Project Lead: Jennifer Kelly)

Learn more about STREAM: seagrant.mit.edu/stream/

MIT Sea Grant also awarded two additional research-based STREAM Grants in 2023, focusing on fisheries and microplastics:

FTIR-Microscopy for Characterization of Microplastics in Seawater (PI: Pia Moisander, UMass Dartmouth)

Extracting Value from Crustacean Processing Waste: An Economic Solution to an Environmental Problem (PI: Alan Abend, UMass Boston)

The STREAM Grant program (Solutions Through Research, Education, and Art in Massachusetts), now in its third year, has awarded a total of 21 grants for projects that engage local communities and partners in new ways, and align with MIT Sea Grant’s coastal and ocean-related goals.

MIT Sea Grant anticipates opening the next STREAM Grant cycle in fall 2024, welcoming educational initiatives, research projects, seed funding and art explorations, and rapid response projects addressing a current coastal or marine challenge.

STREAM Spotlight: Island Creek Oysters

Northeast Funding Opportunity | Sea Grant + NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center Partner to Invest $1 Million

The Northeast Sea Grant Consortium, in partnership with NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, announces a research funding opportunity to improve understanding of fishing community interactions with offshore wind development in the Northeast U.S.

Through this Request for Proposals, the partners are continuing to advance a regional approach and seek to enhance existing and catalyze new human dimensions research with results that bridge fisheries science, fishing community, and management needs.

Approximately $1M will be available to support projects in three topical research areas:

Offshore Wind Development Planning and Engagement
Understanding Fisheries and Offshore Wind Development Interactions
Monitoring of Offshore Wind Development and Fisheries Interactions

>> Read the joint announcement

Read the joint announcement

Full RFP details + eligibility information

Budget requests may not exceed $400,000 in federal funds throughout the duration of the project (up to three years). A 25% non-federal match is required.

Important Dates + Deadlines:

Letters of intent due February 15, 2024 by 5:00pm ET
Full proposals due April 1, 2024
Informational Webinar will be held January 24, 2024 at 3:00pm ET

A graphic with a map of the Northeast US and icons for renewable energy and fishing communities, with the text, Fisheries and Offshore Wind - Advancing Actionable Social Science Research in the Northeast

Mapping Blue Carbon | Report Highlights Coastal Ecosystem Benefits from Maine to Long Island, New York

Across the Northeast, salt marshes and seagrass beds help mitigate climate change by absorbing large quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The EPA, MIT Sea Grant, and a network of partners are bringing blue carbon reservoirs into the spotlight through a collaborative effort involving extensive research and mapping. >>View the EPA Report: “Blue Carbon Reservoirs from Maine to Long Island NY”

More about the Blue Carbon initiative

A saltmarsh habitat in the Northeastern US. Photo: Rob Vincent, MIT Sea Grant

A healthy Massachusetts saltmarsh with winding tidal creeks. Photo: Rob Vincent, MIT Sea Grant

Projects to Watch | Architected Artificial Reefs + Aquaculture Workforce Development

Extending and Integrating Aquaculture Workforce Development Between Communities (MIT Sea Grant and WHOI Sea Grant)

MIT Sea Grant, in partnership with WHOI Sea Grant, will develop a pilot internship program that trains recruits from a diversity of communities. This initiative, funded by the National Sea Grant Office, will provide housing and financial support as the recruits learn to become aquaculturists and experience many of the roles that the industry relies upon.

Each trainee will spend a year as a paid intern with a farm, hatchery, or other essential component of the aquaculture industry. Through this program, MIT Sea Grant and WHOI Sea Grant will work with farms to vet fieldhands for the year in order to help lay the groundwork for a sustainable blue economy and workforce in Massachusetts.

>>Interested in getting involved?

Contact Danny Badger, Marine Extension/ Aquaculture Specialist: badgerd@mit.edu

Photo: John Freidah, MIT MechE

An aerial view of a natural barrier reef

Architected Artificial Reefs (MIT Sea Grant and MIT Center for Bits and Atoms)

Congress has again encouraged Sea Grant to support coastal resilience efforts with its FY2023 appropriation, and the National Sea Grant Office has awarded funding to programs working to address coastal adaptation and resilience challenges. >>Read the National Sea Grant announcement

MIT Sea Grant, in collaboration with the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, is building on a DARPA-funded effort to develop artificial reefs that will help protect coastal communities and infrastructure from storms and erosion, while also providing habitats and shelter for marine life. The novel reef architectures will consist of vertical columns made from benign materials arranged in a configuration that dissipates wave energy. Each column is made up of smaller units that act as habitats for marine life. The overall structures will be scalable for use in a diversity of environments and can be assembled on-site.

More about the Architected Artificial Reefs project

Student Opportunities | Fellowships + Research Opportunities

John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship

The Sea Grant Knauss Fellowship provides one-year paid fellowships for graduate students with an interest in ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes resources and the national policy decisions affecting those resources. Students are matched with hosts in the legislative and executive branches of government in the Washington, D.C. area.

More about the Knauss Fellowship

Application Deadline

February 15, 2024

Apply through MIT Sea Grant or your state's Sea Grant program.

Marisa Borreggine

2024 Knauss Fellow

MIT Sea Grant-sponsored Knauss Fellow Marisa Borreggine, a postdoc at Harvard’s Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences, brings their background in sea level change to a Knauss appointment in the executive branch of government. >>More

NMFS-Sea Grant Joint Fellowship Program

The NMFS-Sea Grant Joint Fellowship Program in Population and Ecosystem Dynamics and Marine Resource Economics is a focused workforce development collaboration between Sea Grant and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

Application Deadline

January 25, 2024

by 5:00pm

Apply through MIT Sea Grant or your state’s Sea Grant program.

>>Learn More

NOAA Coastal Management Fellowship

The NOAA Coastal Management Fellowship provides on-the-job education and training in coastal resource management and policy for postgraduate students. The two-year paid fellowships start in August with coastal programs in CT, ME, U.S. Virgin Islands, WA, and with the Coastal States Organization.

Application Deadline

January 26, 2024

Apply through the Sea Grant program in (or closest to) the state in which you received your graduate degree.

>>Learn More