UW-AAUW STEM Research Grant Recipient Report

Saturday, February 21, 2026
10:00AM - 11:30AM

Online: Free on Zoom. You do not have to be a member to attend.

UW-AAUW STEM Research Grant: Allison Clonch reporting on her research into the Mental Health of Women Mariners. Plus, our AAUW Mini-grant recipient and a brief report from the college students we sent to NCCWSL.

Since grants have become scarce, AAUW Seattle has stepped up developing several grants to support groups and individuals with their important projects that also support the AAUW mission. We are pleased to learn more about these grant recipients and the important work they are doing.

Allison Clonch, PhD candidate in the UW Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and recipient of the first AAUW Seattle Stem Research Grant, will present her research on the mental health of women mariners.

Her inspiration to pursue environmental and occupational health was borne from her feelings of both a moral and practical duty to protect those who bear the disproportionate burden of environmental harms, including vulnerable communities, the working class, and nature itself.

Her dissertation research and broader scholarly work have addressed various topics in environmental and occupational health, such as mental health of maritime workers, farmworker exposure to heat and wildfire smoke, and childhood lead exposure in drinking water. Her research objective is to provide robust scientific evidence in support of advancing policy and practice for environmental justice and worker protection.

Her dissertation research focuses broadly on factors influencing occupational mental health and wellbeing. She has been working on a couple of related projects simultaneously. The first project has been a cross-sectional survey of United States mariners to quantify self-reported mental health, workplace support, experiences of bullying and/or harassment, and other factors. This study serves as an important assessment of the challenges and opportunities facing mariners.

She also has been working on an analysis of national secondary data to examine how self-reported discrimination and vigilance vary by individual and occupation-level characteristics (such as occupational sex composition). This study provides novel insights which may inform future interventions to improve worker mental health and wellbeing.

The Freedom Education Project of Puget Sound (FEPPS) is the first recipient of AAUW Seattle’s Mini-grant Program. Alyssa Knight is a co-founder of FEPPS, and helped create and facilitate gender identity education workshops inside the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) to encourage a more informed and positive environment for gender non-conformance inside the prison. She has a degree in gender studies from the University of Washington and worked on a research project involving the WCCW archive exploring how gender is constructed through prison policies and carceral ideology. FEPPS provides a rigorous accredited college program to incarcerated women, trans-identified and gender nonconforming people in Washington and creates pathways to educational opportunity after students are released from prison. FEPPS goal is to increase their students’ economic and personal empowerment, contribute to family stability, and reduce recidivism through college education.

NCCWSL (Nick-Whistle) stands for National Conference for College Women Student Leaders. This program unites college women from across the nation for a transformative experience in leadership development, networking, and inspiration. We were able to send three students to experience this wonderful program and they’ll tell us about their experiences and take-aways.