Gabrielle Ellis is a 2026 Knauss Executive Fellow placed in NOAA’s Global Ocean Monitoring Observing Program (GOMO) office. In this position, Gabby will work jointly with GOMO’s Arctic Research Program and communications, where she will support the cross-NOAA Arctic Action Team, work directly with NOAA Arctic scientists to coordinate research activities, engage with the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC), and contribute to communication materials, such as the Arctic Report Card. Gabby is keen to develop her science and policy communication skills and cultivate a multistakeholder network, including scientists, government agencies, and local communities. She is looking to gain experience working alongside policymakers to learn how long-term observing networks can be used to safeguard resilient ecosystems, resources, and communities within the Arctic.

Gabby completed her PhD in Spring 2025 at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, for which she received the Mirikitani Outstanding Dissertation Award. Gabby’s dissertation provides baseline ecological descriptions of remote and unexplored habitats of the deep sea and considers how resilient these habitats are to natural variation and human-induced impacts. She earned her bachelor’s of science in environmental science from the University of Texas at Austin in 2018. As a global-issues scientist, Gabby crafts evidence-based management justifications and environmental literacy materials, and she looks forward to applying this skill to her Knauss placement at GOMO.