By Emma Bouthillette 

Staff Writer

While many people flocked to Washington D.C. for President Barack Obama’s inauguration Jan. 20, Rebecca McMahon was traveling to the country’s capital as well. Unlike those who had scheduled a special trip around inaugural celebrations, McMahon was moving to a new home. 

McMahon, 27, of Kennebunkport, relocated to Washington D.C. as a recipient of a marine policy fellowship to work in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Legislative Affairs during the next year. 

A Kennebunk High School graduate, McMahon went onto the University of New Hampshire to receive a bachelor’s degree in environmental conservation. She worked at Jackson Estuarine Laboratory in New Hampshire and the Marine Environmental Research Institute in Blue Hill conducting water quality monitoring and watershed research and spent a summer working with Earthjustice Project Attorney Roger Fleming on ground fishing regulations before earning her juris doctor at Maine School of Law in May 2008. 

“I went to law school because I’m more interested in policy than science,” McMahon said. “This fellowship will help me gain experience in policy.”

Since graduating from Maine School of Law, McMahon said she has been assisting a former professor and director of the Marine Law Institute with current projects in Portland, but is excited to start her new position in Washington D.C.  

 “I’m excited that I can be having this great experience in D.C. and to be able to connect it back to Maine, my home and the place that I love,” McMahon said. 

Established in 1979, the Dean John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship is for students interested in ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes resources, as well as national policy decisions that affect those resources. McMahon is one of 45 graduate students that will spend the next year working with the legislative and executive branches of government. 

Funded by the National Sea Grant College Program, graduate students apply for the fellowship and each of the 32 university-based offices can nominate up to five people for the final list of students to receive the fellowship. McMahon said she learned about the fellowship program through an email she received about a former Maine School of Law graduate. 

“I’ve always kept the idea in mind. It’s a very coveted spot among those interested in marine policy,” McMahon said. 

The fellowship gives McMahon the opportunity to apply her scientific, environmental and law backgrounds to marine and coastal policy making “in the thick of it.”

“I want to see what happens at the national level and who is involved in enforcing and applying policy,” McMahon said. “I want to learn more about environmental law and policy and how to affect change in policy. You can move and shake things a little more that way.”

While in Washington D.C. working with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, McMahon will live with other recipients of the fellowship.

“I’m really excited to be surrounded by people with similar interests,” McMahon said. 

In the next year working in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Legislative Affairs, McMahon said she hopes to learn the hierarchy of enforcement. She’ll be working with congress to address issues facing the oceanic environment. While she said she is unsure of what her duties will be or exact issues she will work with, she is ready to work on “whatever comes up.”

“This experience will be insight to how policy is established, created and enforced. It will be beneficial for me pursuing my goal to be involved with the ocean and environment either at the government or non-profit level,” McMahon said. 

If given the option to continue working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, McMahon said she will continue her policy-making efforts. However, she would like to return to her hometown and address the issues facing the New England coastline, specifically with local fisheries. 

Meanwhile, she said she will take “full advantage” of what the fellowship has to offer — learning as much as she can about oceanic policy — as well as the city she is living in, visiting historically important buildings and the many museums. 

“It’s such a beautiful city,” McMahon said. “I can see the Capital Building from where I’m staying.”

As an added bonus, McMahon was able to attend celebrations for the inauguration of the first African American President of the United States. McMahon said going to the concert Sunday and having tickets to watch the inaugural parade was “a lot of fun,” but McMahon never anticipated the number of people who would be swarming the country’s capital for the inauguration.

“I’ve never been in that type of crowd before. It was almost scary trying to get through to our seats for the parade,” McMahon said. “The whole thing was really unbelievable.”