2023 Marine Interns Blog Week 1: Welcoming the Marine Futures East Coast Interns

2023 Marine Interns Blog Week 1: Welcoming the Marine Futures East Coast Interns

Welcome to the opening 2023 blog from the two new marine interns, Sian Peace and Jasmine Brown.

After an exciting and busy first week at Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, we are excited to introduce ourselves and to give some background information about our internships! The Crown Estate has kindly funded the ‘Marine Futures East Coast Internship’, as part of a joint collaboration between themselves, Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, Ørsted and Natural England.

Over the next six months, we will be learning from each of the partner companies and gaining experience working within the marine sector. We have also each been tasked with an individual and joint research project… More to come on this as we wrap our heads around them!

Sian with a turtle

Sian Peace

Hello! I’m Sian. I thought it would be nice to share a bit about myself; I graduated from The University of Reading in 2021, with a BSc degree in Zoology. Following on from this, I was keen to gain some experience working in the field; especially having spent much of my time at university working remotely due to the pandemic. This led me to spend the summer following my graduation working as a Field Assistant with Wildlife Sense, a sea turtle conservation group where I had previously volunteered. I have always had a passion for marine biology and conservation, and this role only reinforced my interest in these areas.

Like many hoping to enter the environmental sector, I struggled to find an entry level job since the completion of my degree. So, needless to say, I was elated when Tammy Smalley (Head of Conservation at LWT) offered me this position! I’m feeling incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to learn from experts in the field throughout my internship, and I can’t wait to gain an improved understanding of marine industry.

Jasmine in a life jacket

Jasmine Brown

Hi there! I’m Jasmine. So, a little bit about me – I graduated this year from the University of Southampton with a Marine Biology degree and very luckily have stepped my foot into the marine working world with this one-of-a-kind internship. After noticing how tricky it is to find starting work in the field, this internship was a welcome surprise! My degree gave me a strong broad knowledge of the marine environment, so it’s exciting to be able to put the knowledge into action.

During my degree, I got to experience collecting data on research vessels around the Solent and Plymouth Sound (including watching some playful dolphins jump in and out of the wave of the boat) and complete my own research project about fin whale vocalisations in Northern Spain. Outside of the degree, I had been volunteering with the RSPB and attending local beach cleans, where I met some lovely volunteers who give so much time to helping their local environment.

I’m delighted to be starting this internship and excited to be working with the variety of partner organisations and their experts to better my understanding of the marine sector.  

Our first days at LWT started with meeting some experts at Ørsted and a 2-day conference in Scarborough called ReMeMaRe, which focuses on the restoration of seagrass meadows, saltmarshes and native oysters. We’ve also had the pleasure of meeting so many marine experts and the support from them has been incredible.

Over the coming weeks we’ll be sharing our experiences as we navigate through our internships and explore the marine sector, which we hope you’ll enjoy!

Partnership logos for marine interns