Recent University of New Orleans doctoral graduate Anastasia Konefal has won a prestigious Science Policy Fellowship with the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Konefal received her Ph.D. in integrative biology from UNO in August. She worked in biology professor Erin Cox’s Coastal Benthic Lab, which studies animals and plants that live on the sea floor.

Konefal is one of 11 Science Policy Fellows who will spend one year on the staff of federal and state government agencies, public health departments, and nonprofit organizations across the Gulf of Mexico region. She has been placed with the NOAA RESTORE Science Program.

Konefal’s doctoral work investigated the relationship between seagrass genetics—diversity and gene expression—and their productivity in the northern Gulf of Mexico. She worked closely with managers and policy decision-makers through her own research and while working on a NOAA RESTORE planning grant. She has held positions at the National Park Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Nature’s Classroom, an environmental education nonprofit. Konefal is passionate about science communication, actionable science and science policy. Prior to her doctoral work at UNO, she received a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and policy from Smith College in Northampton, MA.

The National Academies’ Gulf Research Program is an independent, science-based program founded in 2013 as part of legal settlements with the companies involved in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. It seeks to enhance offshore energy system safety and protect human health and the environment by catalyzing advances in science, practice and capacity to generate long-term benefits for the Gulf of Mexico region and the nation. The program has $500 million for use over 30 years to fund grants, fellowships and other activities in the areas of research and development, education and training, and monitoring and synthesis.