Dr. Michelle Portman
PhD in Public Policy 2007
Dr. Michelle Portman is our first part-time student to complete her PhD in Public Policy. As a senior environmental planner working for the state, Michelle was in the first class of part-time students who are Commonwealth of Massachusetts managers and policy-makers. While working and raising a family, Michelle completed her degree in just six years. Reflecting back on the experience, she remarked, "The Public Policy PhD program was a positive experience for me. The part-time option gave me the opportunity to continue in my current job working for the state Department of Environmental Protection while expanding my horizons and earning a doctorate. Many things I learned I was able to apply on the job and vice versa. Plus, I feel that I was able to keep my career going in the work world. I was avidly supported by all the faculty and staff."
In the opening page of her dissertation, From Land to Sea: The Application of Land Protection Tools to the Marine Environment, Portman pens, "environmental policy analysts have frequently made comparisons between protection policies on land with those at sea, often pointing out the lag in the development and implementation of marine conservation ...Even with some environmental laws and programs in place to protect marine and coastal resources, it is the lack of successful, well-developed public policies applicable to marine areas that have sometimes resulted in degradation of marine resources, loss of biodiversity, decline in fisheries, and related problems severely impacting our imperiled. While a disparity between land and marine protection is clear, in terms of area protected and knowledge and research, work explicitly describing or attempting to explain this dichotomy is lacking."
Dr. Portman designed and conducted an ambitious study crossing international borders, using several languages, and employing multiple data collection methods. Her studies spanned from the Cape Cod National Seashore to marine conservation areas on Long Island (NY), the Bahamas, and England. While researching zoning design, her work brought her to the proposed Red Sea Marine Park, jointly managed by Jordan and Israel. To assist in her data collection there, she had stakeholder surveys translated into Arabic and Hebrew and conducted key informant interviews in Hebrew. Michelle also used case studies, geographic information systems (GIS), US environmental reports, program evaluations, and sifted through local government files to review zoning appeals and the other issues of local jurisdiction to gather data for her study.
Dr. Portman concluded that marine resources face many of the same threats faced by terrestrial resources. Her dissertation contributes to knowledge about protected area design and innovative institutional and regulatory arrangements for protected areas management. It adds to the current understanding of the evolving role of environmental non-government organizations (NGOs) in marine protection. It also focuses on the application of zoning as a marine protection tool and contributes to marine protected areas policy not only from a design perspective but from an institutional and regulatory one. From a public policy perspective, optimal management of the seas for conservation involves recognizing the similarities as well as the differences between regulatory and management regimes on land and sea, learning from past mistakes, and adapting and expanding on successful models.
Michelle's advisor, Professor David Terkla praises her work, calling it "timely and a significant contribution to the applied environmental management literature. Her analysis of the Red Sea Marine Peace Park has wide applicability as one of the only studies involving the application of the multi-criteria analysis technique to an internationally managed marine sanctuary."
The next chapter in Dr. Michele Portman's career takes her back to ol' Cape Cod. She has accepted a post-doc fellowship position in the Marine Policy Center at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to continue her important environmental policy research. We congratulate her and wish her the very best!
Dr. Michelle Portman
PhD in Public Policy 2007
Current Employment: Post-doc Fellow, Marine Policy Center, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution