Transect Magazine: Field Notes from Washington, D.C.

By Nichole Price, Senior Research Scientist. This story originally appeared in the Summer 2025 edition of Transect.

In early April, I had the good fortune to travel to Washington, D.C. It was my second trip since the inauguration, but one of dozens of interactions I’ve had with policymakers in the District in the past two years in my capacity as the director of Bigelow Laboratory’s Center for Seafood Solutions.

I was there with Dana O’Brien and Kevin Kelley of BioHarbor Strategies, a public affairs consulting partner. We just missed the cherry blossoms, but trees were leafed out, and spring was in full bloom. As is the case when doing any kind of fieldwork, there’s usually not much spare time on these “expeditions” to Washington. But on this particular trip, while traipsing the “Hill” between meetings, we visited the balcony atop the Capitol to look down across the National Mall. Within the Rotunda, I found the sculpture of Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony — with an untouched portion rumored to be awaiting the visage of the first female president — particularly inspiring!

Quickly, though, it was back to work. Our schedule was packed with meetings with staffers from Maine’s delegation and various congressional committees and with partners in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other federal agencies.

As with prior trips, my itinerary was designed to educate and advocate with decision makers on issues beleaguering the shellfish and seaweed aquaculture industries — and to demonstrate how Bigelow Laboratory’s cutting-edge science can relieve those bottlenecks. Over the last several years, I’ve been working on a report with the USDA Agricultural Research Service showing how R&D around farmed seaweeds and seagrasses is driving new economic activity on the working waterfront. Part of our goal during the latest trip was to showcase this report, which came out last fall, and explain how pending bipartisan bills, like the Innovative Feed Enhancement and Economic Development (IFEED) Act and Plant Biostimulant Act, can open new markets. These bills create a cleaner regulatory path to market for novel algal-based livestock feed additives and row crop agricultural fertilizers. They’ll also enhance U.S. industry in the rapidly growing global seaweed sector. More immediately, these policies will enable our Coast-Cow-Consumer research program to safely test novel products on experimental herds and farm plots as part of our work developing algae-based products for the dairy industry.

I may spend more time meeting with agricultural policy experts than most, but many of my colleagues at Bigelow Laboratory make similar treks each year to D.C. We’re bringing our science directly to policymakers by meeting with staffers, presenting in hearings, and expanding our networks within federal funding agencies.

I’ve spent plenty of time in the field as a scientist, diving coral reefs from the Central Pacific to Bermuda. But these days, my idea of the “field” is broader than ever, stretching from dairy farms in upstate New York to the halls of the Capitol. I may return to those remote reefs some day! But in the meantime, I’ve traded in my wetsuit for a blazer, and I’m finding these D.C. trips just as satisfying. It is truly science in action!

Photo courtesy of Dana O’Brien