Southern Miss Graduate Student Named Knauss Fellow (with photo)

[Newsguy]

Hattiesburg – University of Southern Mississippi graduate student Andrea Neu will soon put her academic training in marine science to use, not in the lab, but in Washington, D.C., working with a government agency on marine policy and regulations.Neu will complete a year-long stint in the nation’s capital as a recipient of a 2007 Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship. She is one of 46 Knauss fellows nationwide and the only Mississippi student selected for the nationally-competitive honor this year.Neu, who is completing her master’s degree in marine sciences with an emphasis in biological oceanography, became interested in marine policy while an undergraduate at Southern Miss. While she has a love for marine science, she said she wanted to spend more time outside a laboratory and turned her eyes toward marine policy.“I didn’t want to be in a lab all day,” Neu said. “With my science background and personality, policy was the way for me to go.”While Neu is educated in marine sciences, she sees the Knauss fellowship as her opportunity to open the door to valuable knowledge about policy issues.A common interest in marine policy drew Neu and Dr. Don Redalje, professor of marine science, to work on projects that could be expanded beyond the pure science into areas of environmental quality and public policy on marine issues. She is completing her graduate thesis, “Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to model the environmental quality of St. Louis Bay, Mississippi” under Redalje’s direction. From this study, Andrea is using data to graphically depict how the data varies over the years, and from that, compile information which can help environmental managers make better decisions, said Redalje. “Andrea’s selection really gives us another avenue to show how good our students are on the national scene,” says Redalje. “Many end up working permanently for a Washington agency. My hope is that she will be able to advance her career through this prestigious opportunity.”Neu is the third Southern Miss female student to be named a Knauss fellow since the program’s inception in 1979. Nikola Garber, a Southern Miss graduate and 1999 Knauss fellow, is now assistant director of operations at the National Sea Grant Office in Washington. The Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium endorsed Neu’s application for the fellowship, which is sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.Neu, originally from Illinois, moved to Corinth, Miss., when she was in high school. She graduated from Corinth High School in 2000 and earned her bachelor’s degree in marine biology from Southern Miss in 2003. Neu is the daughter of Richard and Angie Neu of Altamont, Ill., and Mark and Diana Hollie of Ramer, Tenn. She resides in Picayune, Miss.The fellowship program is named in honor of John A. Knauss, a former administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a founder of the Sea Grant program. Sea Grant is national network of more than 30 programs that provide support, leadership and expertise for university-based marine research, extension and education.Andrea Neu

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