Phoebe Jekielek Joins the COSEE-OS Team - 01.10.2012

Phoebe Jekielek has joined the COSEE-OS team as a Marine Education Associate. She hails from Punxsutawney, PA, Home of the Groundhog. She attended Boston University for her undergraduate education, majoring in biology with a specialization in marine science. During her time there she spent a semester in Wood's Hole, MA, at the Marine Biological Laboratory and a semester in Ecuador studying many facets of the marine realm in temperate and tropical locales.

After graduating in 2003, she headed out to Western Alaska to do some salmon research and then moved to Maine where she waited tables, worked as an at-sea observer on commercial vessels, and spent time as a naturalist at a local beach. In 2005 she headed to California where she worked for the Catalina Island Marine Institute teaching 4-12th grade students about marine science through hands-on experiential education (snorkeling in kelp forests, kayaking along the coast, and exploring touch tanks in labs). Summers were filled with more marine education in Boston for Save the Harbor Save the Bay or performing Divemaster duties in the Florida Keys.

In 2009 she returned to Maine and enrolled in the Dual Degree Program in Marine Biology and Marine Policy at the University of Maine School of Marine Sciences. Her policy research focuses on assessing attitudes of participants in the cooperative research process in New England while her biology thesis is centered on a species of copepod, Calanus finmarchicus, and its potential energy contribution to higher trophic levels in the Gulf of Maine.

She began working part time with COSEE-OS in January 2012 while she completes her degrees, and reports that she's very excited to be a part of COSEE-OS. She looks forward to working to integrate the knowledge of educators, graduate students and scientists and to continuing to inspire young minds for creation of the next generation of ocean scientists!

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