OSU offers a wide variety of graduate degree and certificate programs that can be used to study coastal and ocean issues

Interested in pursuing a degree or certificate in a marine-related field? Learn about some graduate student experiences in marine-related graduate programs below.

Brian Erickson

M.S., Marine Resource Management

With support from Eric and Wendy Schmidt, MSI continues to pursue research, education, and outreach activities on “Ocean Acidification (OA): Advancing Understanding, Education and Communication of a Transdisciplinary Ocean Challenge.”

Graduate student Brian Erickson successfully defended his Marine Resource Management master's degree focused on OA education in high school settings. Brian joined OSU-CEOAS in September 2016, and his work included developing a new OA curriculum and testing whether student attitudes changed after learning about ways to address this challenge to our ocean systems. Brian also worked with teacher focus groups to improve the curriculum he designed, and in Fall 2017, taught this week-long curriculum to ten high school classrooms in coastal Lincoln County, Oregon. At present,  more than 340 students have participated in this project. His “Changing Ocean Chemistry” curriculum is currently being published with the help of Oregon Sea Grant and the current draft is freely available online.

Brian remains at OSU in the Department of Fisheries & Wildlife. He is pursuing a Ph.D. in Kelly Biedenweg’s human dimensions lab and looks forward to combining his interests in marine education and conservation decision making.

Meredith Leung

Geology – Ruggiero lab

Meredith is a PhD student working with the Envisioning Oregon’s Coastal Futures project, where she is modeling coastal hazards, such as erosion and flooding, along with a variety of policy scenarios on the Oregon Coast in order to forecast which policies will best align with community goals of resilience when faced with both chronic and acute hazards on the coast. She is excited that this work addresses fundamental questions about coastal hazards in Oregon, relates to human issues surrounding equity and resilience, and overall helps improve community planning and people’s lives.

Meredith’s favorite part of grad school is, “getting to be surrounded by people who are equally as passionate about their own research subject. There are a lot of opportunities to learn from those around you and resources to gain new experiences and skills.” In the next few years, she plans to continue honing her teaching and presenting skills, start publishing her first papers, and complete an internship at a government agency or national lab.

Evan Durland

Aquaculture – Langdon lab

Evan recently earned his PhD studying the effects of ocean acidification on oyster larvae.

Evan received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Colorado State University and his master’s from Auburn University, where he began his work in aquaculture studying fish nutrition and spawning hybrid catfish for use in commercial aquaculture. When asked what led to his interest in this work, Evan said, “I transitioned to aquaculture because I wanted to direct my curiosity and passion for marine biology into a constructive field. I see sustainable aquaculture as a way to relieve some of the pressure on globally over-exploited fish stocks and I want to be an advocate for the ‘blue revolution’ and a transition of how we utilize global ocean environments.”

After completing his master’s degree, he worked with Dr. Langdon and the Molluscan Broodstock Program, then moved to Indonesia to run oyster hatcheries for three years before returning to OSU to complete his PhD.

Currently, Evan is a Post-Doc at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, working on a project that evaluates the efficacy of rearing mussels, seaweeds, and salmon together, including how co-culture affects the microbiome of these species. When he’s not in the lab, Evan enjoys kayaking, spearfishing, mountain biking, and surfing. His future goals include securing funding to continue this research, and publishing more articles in higher tier journals.