Alaska Sea Grant

06/10/2026

MEET RACHEL !! 🦪🌿

For the past two years, Rachel French has supported Alaska’s growing kelp and oyster industry as an Alaska Sea Grant State Fellow with the mariculture team. She updated key oyster and kelp farming resources to strengthen connections to promote sustainable practices. 🤝

Stay tuned for the release of the New Alaska Oyster Growers manual and the Kelp Farming manual. Coming soon !!📚

06/05/2026

Alaska Sea Grant’s latest round of research projects stretch across the state of Alaska and the scale of life on earth !! 🌎

The five projects selected to receive Alaska Sea Grant funding from 2026-28 reach from Utqiagvik to Sitka, and focus on organisms as small as microbes and as large as gray whales. 🐋

“This year’s projects exemplify how broad a reach Alaska Sea Grant has,” said Molly Cain, Alaska Sea Grant’s associate director for research. “They all address very different topics, but each will make a substantial contribution to our knowledge of conditions along Alaska’s coastlines and rivers.” 🌊

A total of 22 Alaskan research teams submitted preproposals, of whom 11 were encouraged to submit full proposals. Awarded proposals were selected based on their scientific merit, relevance to Alaska’s needs, and alignment with Alaska Sea Grant’s focus areas of healthy coastal ecosystems, sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, resilient communities and economies, and environmental literacy and workforce development. Each project supports a graduate student, incorporates community partners and includes an outreach plan to engage and inform the public. 🤝🏼

Learn more about each of the projects on our website 🔗 linked in below. alaskaseagrant.org > News

🔗: https://alaskaseagrant.org/2026/05/alaska-sea-grant-announces-research-awards/

06/04/2026

NEW: More than 1.5 MILLION pounds of trash were cleaned up from Alaskan coastlines in 2025! 🌊

Developed in collaboration with Alaska Sea Grant and Sitka Sound Science Center, our recent statewide report shows just how impactful cleanups organized by Tribes, communities, fishermen, business, nonprofits and other across Alaska were last year. More than 1,600 ocean advocates and 25 lead entities helped make this incredible impact happen!

Our own Arctic Marine Debris Manager Kristina Tirman says it best: “This report gives us an opportunity to better understand the scale of the marine debris problem in Alaska and highlight the incredible efforts happening in communities across the state.”

We are proud to support and amplify the work of the organizations and Tribes who have been leading this work to protect Alaska’s coastlines and communities. Check out the full report PDF for all the incredible data from 2025’s Alaska cleanups! 🚮

🗞️ Learn more: https://bit.ly/4uQHn3W

📊 Full report: https://bit.ly/49E6QVJ

06/04/2026

From the ship's log:

Tomorrow ... 🗺️

06/04/2026

Check out the NEW Alaska Oyster Voyage !! 🗺️🦪

06/02/2026

06/02/2026

Get ready to in an all new way. 🦪

06/04/2026 🤫

05/29/2026

05/29/2026

Join us via ZOOM next Wednesday for the next presentation in our Strait Science series…

AVIAN INFLUENZA: AN UPDATE ON ALASKA’S WILDLIFE!

📆 Wednesday, June 3
⏰ 6:30 pm
📍Remote via Zoom

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is an emerging wildlife disease that has become more common in Alaska since 2022. Come hear the latest HPAI info and updates, how it has affected Alaska’s wildlife and how you can support 2026 sampling efforts for HPAI in the Bering Strait region.

Join Zoom Meeting:
🔗 https://tinyurl.com/5xwz8fjn

Meeting ID: 894 5376 0932 Passcode: 992464
Or call: 253 215 8782

Andy Ramey is a research biologist with USGS Alaska Science Center. Lisa Kercher is a research biologist with the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Strait Science (UAF): https://www.uaf.edu/nwc/outreach/strait-science.php

Strait Science (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuuqkhFcq8ifdnRxDaKYiRiewrQSvzcA6

05/29/2026

Alaska Sea Grant announces 2026 Community-Engaged Fellows !! ✨

Six undergraduate students will get a leg up in their careers this summer while helping Alaska’s coastal communities through Alaska Sea Grant’s Community-Engaged Fellowship program. 🩵

🌊 Meet the fellows:

🦭 Ayla Knodel, an undergraduate at the University of Alaska Southeast, will conduct beach surveys of marine mammals and seabirds in Nome and the Bering Strait region to collect data on marine animals impacted by harmful algal blooms and other environmental factors.

🦀 Bergen Kludt-Painter, who recently received her Bachelor of Science from the University of Idaho, will conduct European green crab invasive species monitoring and outreach in Petersburg and Wrangell.

🌾 Alex Devon, who recently received her Bachelor of Arts from the UAA: University of Alaska Anchorage —and who also served as a Community-Engaged Fellow in 2025—will work with the Alaska Sea Grant coastal resilience team for the summer, focused on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

🥬 UAA: University of Alaska Anchorage undergraduate Amiah Jared will explore ways local food production can build resilience in coastal communities. She will focus on Cordova, Haines, Klukwan, Seldovia and Homer.

🦪 Tessa Davis, who recently received her Associate of Arts from Kodiak College, will assist in monitoring harmful algal blooms (HABs) in the Kodiak Seafood and Marine Science Center shellfish lab.

🐟 University of Alaska Southeast undergraduate Hannah Bogdan—who previously served as a Community-Engaged Fellow in both Summer 2025 and Spring 2026—will help with Coastal Connections Camps and related activities in Valdez and Seward.

Read the full story on our website 🔗 linked below. alaskaseagrant.org > News

🔗: https://alaskaseagrant.org/2026/05/alaska-sea-grant-announces-2026-community-engaged-fellows/