Achievement

IGERT Graduate Fellows Jack Kittinger and Jenny Schultz both were awarded the Mia J. Tegner Memorial Research Grant Program in Marine Environmental History and Historical Marine Ecology (Tegner Grant) by the Marine Conservation Biology Institute. The Tegner Grant is among the first of its kind to help understand the composition and abundance of ocean life prior to human exploitation. This information is helping lawmakers, regulators, managers and activists set appropriate targets for marine conservation efforts. Kittinger’s award was for ‘Quantifying historical anthropogenic impacts to ecosystems integrity in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands,’ Schultz’s was for researching ‘The status of the Hawaiian monk seal prior to human exploitation and management,’ and focuses on reconstructing the population of Hawaiian monk seals through genetic and molecular methods.