Scholarship and fellowship opportunities

Current and Past State Postgraduate Fellows

This is not an active opportunity. 

Learn more about becoming a Knauss Fellow

Applicant due date: Thursday, January 23, 2025 

This NMFS-Sea Grant Joint Fellowship program is aimed at PhD candidates who are United States citizens interested in population and ecosystem dynamics and marine resource economics. For students interested in marine ecosystem and population dynamics:

• The emphasis will be on the research and development of quantitative methods for assessing the status of marine ecosystems; managed fish, invertebrates, and other targeted species; and marine mammals, seabirds, and other protected species. 

Similarly for students interested in marine resource economics topics:

• The fellowship supports students who are interested in careers related to the development and implementation of quantitative methods for assessing the economics of the conservation and management of living marine resources.

You can find more information on grants.gov, HERE, and the updated student guide can be found on our webpage HERE. 

Interested students should contact jennifer.hauxwell@aqua.wisc.edu for more information about the application process for Wisconsin applicants.

This is not an active opportunity. 

The NOAA Office for Coastal Management’s mission is to provide on-the-job education and training opportunities in coastal resource management and policy for postgraduate students and to provide project assistance to state coastal zone management agencies and other key NOAA partners. 

This is not an active opportunity. 

Coastal Management Fellowship Program. This program’s mission is to provide on-the-job education and training opportunities in coastal resource management and policy for postgraduate students and to provide project assistance to state coastal zone management agencies. 

The Coastal Management Fellowship was established in 1996 to provide on-the-job education and training opportunities in coastal resource management and policy for postgraduate students and to provide project assistance to state coastal zone management programs. The program matches postgraduate students with state coastal zone programs to work on projects proposed by the state and selected by the fellowship sponsor, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office for Coastal Management. This two-year opportunity offers a competitive salary, medical benefits, and travel and relocation expense reimbursement. 

Learn more on the NOAA Office for Coastal Management website.

This is not an active opportunity. 

Wisconsin Sea Grant and the Wisconsin Coastal Management Program fund this science-policy fellowship for candidates interested in tackling science and policy challenges related to increasing the resilience of coastal communities across the Great Lakes region.

The fellowship is named in honor of longtime Sea Grant coastal engineering expert Phil Keillor, who passed away in 2009, to celebrate his legacy in building resilience in Wisconsin communities. This fellowship provides a unique educational and career opportunity for a recent graduate who is interested both in aquatic resources and in the policy decisions affecting those resources in Wisconsin. It places a recent master’s or doctoral graduate within a state agency full-time for one year, with the Fellow bringing technical skills to benefit water issues and challenges and receiving valuable real-world science-policy experience from the resource professionals who serve as mentors.

This mutually beneficial partnership helps advance science to support policy decisions, and it provides valuable training opportunities for new professionals entering the work force.

This is not an active opportunity. 

The Wisconsin Sea Grant College Program (housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Aquatic Sciences Center) and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) Office of Great Waters Program seeks postdoctoral and post-master’s candidates interested in tackling science and policy challenges related to climate change and Lake Superior coastal wetlands. Together, these programs fund a state Science-Policy Fellow position, named in honor of a longtime Sea Grant coastal engineering expert J Phillip Keillor, to celebrate his legacy in providing science to help build resilience in Wisconsin. This fellow position provides a unique educational and career opportunity for a recent graduate interested in climate change, coastal wetlands, and the policy decisions affecting those resources in Wisconsin. This program places a recent master’s or doctoral graduate within a state agency full-time for two years, with the fellow bringing technical skills to address coastal wetland and climate change issues while receiving valuable real-world science-policy experience from the resource professionals who will serve as mentors.

These mutually beneficial partnerships advance science to support policy decisions and provide valuable training opportunities for new professionals entering the work force. 

More detail on the fellowship is here.

This is not an active opportunity.

The Wisconsin Sea Grant College Program (housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Aquatic Sciences Center), in partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (WDHS), seeks postdoctoral and post-master’s candidates interested in tackling science and policy challenges related to climate change, water resources, flooding adaptation, social science, urban planning, or preparedness and mitigation in Wisconsin and the Great Lakes region. Together, these programs will place a recent master’s or doctoral graduate at the Department of Health Services, with the Fellow bringing technical skills to address Wisconsin flood resilience issues while receiving valuable real-world science-policy experience from the resource professionals who will serve as mentors. 

This is not an active opportunity.

The University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute, in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP), seeks postdoctoral candidates interested in addressing scientific challenges to advance aquaculture in Wisconsin. Together, these programs fund a Keillor Fellowship in Aquaculture, named in honor of a longtime Sea Grant coastal engineering expert J. Philip Keillor, to celebrate his legacy in providing science to help support informed decisions for the sustainable use of Great Lakes resources. This Fellowship provides a unique educational and career opportunity for a postdoctoral fellow by placing them at the UWSP-Northern Aquaculture Demonstration Facility (UWSP-NADF) for two years, with the fellow bringing technical skills to address aquaculture issues and challenges and receiving valuable real-world applied science experience from aquaculture professionals serving as mentors.

This mutually beneficial partnership advances the science to support aquaculture in Wisconsin as well as provides a valuable training opportunity for a new aquaculture professional. This position offers a unique opportunity for analyzing data and publishing manuscripts on a variety of species and systems from past projects as well as future research to be conducted at this internationally recognized, state-of-the-art research facility for applied aquaculture research.

This is not an active opportunity.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Aquatic Sciences Center (UW), home to the University of Wisconsin Water Resources and Sea Grant Institutes, and in partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (WDHS) seek postdoctoral and post-master’s candidates interested in tackling timely science and policy challenges related to water resources management and human health in Wisconsin. Together, these programs will fund a Wisconsin Water Resources Science-Policy Fellow position. This program places a recent master’s or doctoral graduate within a state program full-time for one to two years, with the Fellow bringing technical skills to address water issues and tackle related public health challenges and receiving valuable real-world science-policy experience from the resource professionals who will serve as mentors. This mutually beneficial partnership will result in advancing science to support public health policy decisions as well as valuable training opportunities for new professionals entering the work force.

This fellowship offers a placement within the Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) Program at the WDHS in downtown Madison to learn about and help address the important public health challenges of cyanobacterial HABs in Wisconsin. This unique position entails working with both people and data on an emerging One Health issue, focusing on protecting and promoting the health of people, animals, and the environment through bloom-related illness investigation and public health response and outreach efforts.

We seek applicants from a variety of backgrounds including public health/epidemiology, water resources, climate sciences, social sciences, communications, etc. to conduct ongoing surveillance, detection, investigation, and reporting of human and animal illnesses resulting from exposure to cyanobacterial blooms in Wisconsin and related outreach and education efforts.  

This is not an active opportunity. 

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Aquatic Sciences Center, home to the Wisconsin Sea Grant and Water Resources Institutes, in partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Great Lakes Toxicology and Ecology Division seek post Master’s candidates interested in tackling scientific challenges related to water resources management and human health. Together, these programs will support a Fellow to provide technical expertise to advance ecological research while receiving valuable support from EPA scientists who will serve as mentors. This Fellow will be placed at the US EPA Office of Research and Development lab in Duluth, MN, and will be working directly with Dr. Matthew Etterson in addition to researchers from across Wisconsin and the region.