WA Sea Grant Coastal Resilience Fellowship

Washington Sea Grant Coastal Resilience Fellowship Description

2026-2028

About the Host

Host Organization Location

Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe (LEKT) Port Angeles, WA

Mentor

Allyce Miller, Project Biologist/Revegetation Manager

Project Title

Coastal Resilience and Adaptation Integration for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe

Work Set-up

In-person - LEKT prefers the fellow to live locally and regularly come into the office and/or meet at work-related sites.

Coastal Resilience Capacity Need

The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe (LEKT) is a small coastal tribal community with a cultural and economic dependence on salmon and the nearshore and estuarine ecosystem. The reservation, which includes tribal homes and facilities, is largely in the floodplain and vulnerable to flooding risk. It is protected by an Army Corps of Engineers levee, and is highly vulnerable to coastal erosion, river flood and drought, and coastal resources impacts. The community wants to ensure that the Elwha River, reservation, and nearshore environment are best suited to be resilient against future climatic projections.

Climate change also threatens the coastal system by increasing temperatures, reducing flow, and melting snowpack causing thermal and spatial stress to coastal salmon populations that use threatened nearshore habitat. The Elwha river feeds the estuary where juvenile salmon rear, then out-migrate to the nearshore where a healthy nearshore ecosystem protects their survival, connecting the river to the marine ecosystems, and supporting cultural continuity of the coastal community that stewards them. Our top priority is to utilize community-informed adaptation and monitoring results to bolster ecological, cultural, economic, and infrastructure resilience.

A Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment has identified hydrological, ecological, and coastal risks to the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, which threatens both the community and ecosystem in post-dam recovery. We are approaching a pivotal stage of integrating resiliency priority actions into the implementation and execution of a Climate Change Adaptation Plan. Seasonal water shortages are increasing, coastal erosion on LEKT reservation and surrounding usual and accustomed lands is increasing, and capacity is extended amidst existing staff to integrate adaptation and mitigation actions into the Natural Resource Department and Planning Department programs. We are seeking assistance with grant development, resource monitoring, and community/agency/cross-departmental outreach to advance our climate change adaptation efforts through implementation. A fellow would be paramount in assisting with the integration of climate change resilience and mitigation actions, with an emphasis on community priorities, into planning actions. In September 2026, the conclusion of our community outreach specialist’s term will further reduce our ability to sustain coordinated communication across the LEKT community, departments, and partners during the implementation transition.

Serving as a climate change coastal resilience integrator, a fellow will assist with community engagement tied to adaptation projects, the implementation of resiliency actions into programmatic operations, monitoring of coastal tribal treaty resources and critical habitats, grant development and proposal efforts, and integrating monitoring results into resiliency planning. This role is designed to embed resilience into long-term planning structures and funding systems across Natural Resources, Planning, and Public Works that persist beyond the fellowship term.

Mentorship Experience 

In the LEKT Natural Resources Department, we host several youth mentorship programs which include outdoor skill enrichment, and scientific field technique training. The fellow's supervisor further cultivates mentorship culture by managing the hosting of two Washington Conservation Corps crews on the reservation- a job training service for veterans and young adults seeking careers in the environmental field. These crews are based on the LEKT reservation and we employ these crews on our projects for an average total of two months a year in order to use their valuable assistance and expose them to projects in their interested field. We value early and shifting career pathway development by offering any engaged people insight into our programs through custom and general volunteer opportunities. We also host BIA and Peninsula College interns, collaborate with graduate researchers, and host contractors and interns from NOAA and other agencies.

We have agency partnerships with NOAA, Olympic National Park, USGS, Clallam County, North Olympic Salmon Coalition, Clallam Conservation District, Natural Systems Design, and more. Educational opportunities would include environmental resiliency conferences, tribal climate adaptation convening, and learning exchanges. Hands-on experience would include monitoring programs, habitat restoration planning, and community engagement facilitation.

Organizational Values

The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe emphasizes inclusion and welcoming in its foundational principles. Members of the general and local public are invited to educational field trips and webinars. Volunteers receive field skill training, and we offer collaboration with the local environmental science camp, NatureBridge. Skill development and resume building is offered to individuals who have participated in any of our programs. LEKT welcomes people from outside the community to get involved through various volunteer opportunities and through visitation of the LEKT Carnegie Museum, Heritage Center, and Tribal Center.

When LEKT hosted Canoe Journeys this past summer, the Tribe welcomed over one hundred volunteers to assist with event operations. The Tribe hosted a welcoming ceremony for the volunteers as well as a closing ceremony complete with lunch and gifts for all those who helped. All people from near and far were welcomed throughout the five-day long celebration to observe cultural song and dance.

About the Fellowship Position

Fellow Project Scope

The Coastal Resilience Fellow will support climate change adaptation planning and implementation efforts with a focus on coastal nearshore ecosystem resiliency for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. This role will integrate resilience principles into ongoing infrastructure projects and future development planning, assist with project grant writing and funding acquisition, and contribute to the monitoring and protection of threatened species and critical nearshore habitats in the recovering Elwha River ecosystem. This fellow will work closely with LEKT’s Natural Resources Department and Planning/Economic Development Department to advance nature-based and community-informed resilience strategies.

Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe's climate change resilience consists of four phases:

Phase One - Vulnerability Assessment, which is now complete. Involved climate vulnerability assessment, community outreach, and identification of primary risks.

Phase Two - Prioritization is underway; we are furthering community engagement and gathering cross-department input to identify the community’s top coastal and climactic concerns. In September 2026, when the fellow begins, we will be synthesizing community and environmental data. The fellow will initially focus on assisting with core planning and coordination duties such as development of project sequencing framework, establishment of a cross-department coordination model, project communication with the community and other agencies, and monitoring of critical resources. To a supportive capacity, they will review development projects with resilience in mind and help provide ecologically sustainable solutions. By March 2027 when the LEKT Climate Change Adaptation Plan is complete, we will have identified a set of priority climate resilience adaptation projects from the plan to pursue.

Phase Three – Implementation is the primary fellowship period. With a finalized Climate Change Adaptation Plan, and as structures are established, the fellow’s core responsibilities will shift to funding and resource acquisition including identification of grant opportunities and development of proposals, cross-department and cross-agency communication, as well as assisting with integration of climate resilience into capital improvements like water system updates and housing expansion. This will involve assistance with project funding and tracking, compliance oversight, and reporting.

Throughout this process as capacity allows, the fellow will assist the Natural Resources Department with data collection for salmonid and and nearshore species identification and enumeration, stormwater quality sampling, and coastal invasive species management. These activities will support professional development and provide holistic context for the additional role of developing and implementing climate change and coastal resiliency into the monitoring program. They will align environmental monitoring metrics with climate adaptation goals to support the integration of coastal environmental restoration.

 Desired Outcomes from the Fellowship

By the end of the project, LEKT intends to have integrated multiple climate adaptation and resilience actions into operations, integrated community resiliency priorities into operations, established a cross-department coordination framework, secured funding for priority projects, integrated resilience criteria into infrastructure planning, aligned monitoring metrics with adaptation goals, and documented implementation framework.

The fellow would be expected to assist with the completion of cross-department and cross-agency project advancement, development and submission of grant proposals, manage project tracking, gain Tribal governance and community engagement experience, and apply field and policy-based adaptation skills. Success entails resiliency criteria formally adopted in planning.

Example of Day-to-Day Fellow Activities

• Community engagement and communication
• Climate change adaptation planning implementation
• Grant development working sessions
• Monitoring and field support
• Cross-department and cross-agency coordination meetings

Candidate Experience and Skills

• Minimum Education Level: Bachelor’s Degree 
• Required skills/experience
  • Project coordination
  • Organizational and systemic thinking
  • Climate change adaptation familiarity
  • Writing, preferably grant writing
  • Field work experience
  • Ability to work independently
• Preferred skills/experience
  • Coastal ecological knowledge
  • Salmon or watershed systems knowledge
  • Tribal relations and cultural sensitivity
  • Grant application familiarity
  • Environmental policy

Networking and Professional Development Opportunities

• Community outreach to LEKT community
• Environmental and natural resource monitoring communications
• Cross-agency communications
• Climate change resilience conferences and networking opportunities
• Cross-department and Tribal government communications

Additional Considerations

LEKT members, LEKT member descendants, and Tribal members from other federally recognized tribes are encouraged to apply, but all applicants are welcome to submit a position preference