In January 2026, I recently completed the year-long Sea Grant John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship Program assigned to NOAA’s Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Office of International Activities (OAR/IA). There, I served as the lead on NOAA Sea Grant’s international engagements, such as supporting collaborations with Korea Sea Grant in the Republic of Korea. Prior to the Knauss fellowship, I was largely unaware of the many international engagements that NOAA leads, and feel especially grateful to have had a hand in supporting Sea Grant international efforts.

The Korea Sea Grant Program, which has over twenty years of support from their Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, was modeled after the U.S. National Sea Grant College Program and similarly has university-based centers that conduct marine and coastal-related research and outreach. Currently, the Korea Sea Grant network consists of eight Sea Grant Centers spread across the peninsula.

The highlight of my Knauss Fellowship was coordinating the U.S. delegation who attended Korea Sea Grant week in Gangwon, along South Korea’s northeastern shore, overlooking the East Sea. This symposium was held in November 2025, right after the U.S. government re-opened on November 13th, immediately following the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. With only a week between the day the government re-opened and the start of the symposium, I had to finalize all the logistics and receive clearance the day the government re-opened. U.S. attendees to Korea Sea Grant week included two Knauss fellows from NOAA headquarters in Washington, D.C., as well as representatives from California Sea Grant, Guam Sea Grant, Hawaiʻi Sea Grant, and Maine Sea Grant, all presenting on two overarching themes of marine debris and aquaculture.

The most rewarding part of the program was finally having the chance to meet people in-person who we had been interacting and coordinating with only virtually for many months. We also learned about the interesting and critical work being done by Sea Grant programs in both the U.S. and the Republic of Korea. For example, Gyeonggi-Incheon Sea Grant has extensive research and outreach programming centered on marine debris monitoring in the Yellow Sea, between China and Korea. Gangwon Sea Grant presented their center’s research regarding the salmon fishing industry and workforce development. California Sea Grant discussed the West Coast mariculture industry’s history and potential to regenerate the coastal environment. Since we were scoping for candidate aquaculture projects for 2026, we focused on identifying synergies between U.S. and Korean Sea Grant programs.

I am so grateful that I could close the loop on this particular event, which helped me make sense of how international partnerships and collaborations are both formed and sustained. Attending in-person is essential to showing that these engagements matter to us and that we are invested in continuing to move forward together. Past successful collaborations between Korea and the U.S. Sea Grant programs include the marine debris modeling work between Gyeonggi-Incheon Sea Grant, University of Guam Sea Grant, and Hawaiʻi Sea Grant, as well as prior projects on coastal erosion.

Outside of my work with Korea Sea Grant, my Knauss position included supporting a range of international efforts, including bilateral engagements between NOAA and the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST) and the Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI). NOAA-KIOST collaborations largely fall within the Ocean Research Panel, supported by the Joint Project Agreement between NOAA and Korea’s Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries. The Ocean Research Panel involves nine sub-projects on topics ranging from deep sea exploration to researching air-sea interactions that inform tropical cyclone monitoring and forecasting. Coordinating collaborations involves weekly meetings between the panel co-chairs, organizing annual workshops and meetings across the Ocean Research Panel, soliciting project proposals and accomplishments reports, staying up to date on the needs of each project, and managing the budget across the panel.

I also supported engagements with Japan and Taiwan, as well as multilateral engagements through the All-Atlantic Ocean Research and Innovation Alliance (AAORIA), where I helped coordinate expert working groups, and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), where I helped manage information requests. In addition, I served as the communications liaison for OAR/IA and led an economic valuation of NOAA’s international research engagements, which was shared with NOAA leadership to convey the value that international partnerships bring to the NOAA enterprise.

After a year of working in NOAA OAR/IA as a Knauss Fellow, I learned about the value that international collaborations hold for both government agencies and researchers on the ground, as well as how science diplomacy operates and how to communicate both science and international work to a range of audiences. I look forward to applying this new knowledge and skills in my future career working towards international cooperation on shared environmental values.