Shaw Fellows

SWAG��Ƶ the Fellowship

The Shaw Innovation Fellowship offers two programs to catalyze student innovation on campus by providing mentorship, curriculum, professional development opportunities, and stipend support. Shaw Fellows work with internal and external partners to create solutions that address social, environmental, and economic challenges facing our communities. Every year, five Senior Shaw Fellows from across SWAG��Ƶ’s academic programs each receive $5,000 to lead an innovative project in their area of interest. A second group of students form the Shaw Innovation Team, with each team member receiving $1,000 to collaborate on an interdisciplinary capstone project. As part of the program, students also have the opportunity to meet other local and regional innovators via specially designed workshops.

Photo of David Evans Shaw against rocks and the ocean

SWAG��Ƶ David Evans Shaw

The Shaw Innovation Program, launched in 2021, is made possible through the generosity of David Evans Shaw. Through the program, Shaw, a prominent business and social entrepreneur and resident of Maine, seeks to supplement demand for education and research in the fields of entrepreneurship, science, technology, business, and leadership in order to help build a network of student innovators across several New England universities.

With extensive global leadership experience in science-based companies, investment management, and social impact NGOs, David Evans Shaw has helped build more than a dozen successful technology companies as a CEO or board member. These companies, employing more than 15,000 people worldwide, harness modern science to address important needs in health care and other markets. Early in his career, Shaw helped build a leading consulting firm in food and agriculture.

Shaw’s career has included extensive public service in science, arts, conservation and public policy. He has served on the faculty of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the advisory board of the Center for Public Leadership. He is a founding director of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum, chair-emeritus of The Jackson Laboratory, and treasurer emeritus of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has also been a global leader in science-based conservation of nature as a trustee of the National Park Foundation, founding chair of the Sargasso Sea Alliance and Aspen High Seas Initiative, patron of nature to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, member of Ocean Elders, and as founder of Second Century Stewardship for America’s national parks.

Shaw supports his many interests with the production of short films.

The five Shaw Senior Fellows standing in a line

Meet the Shaw Senior Fellows

The five students selected as Shaw Senior Fellows for the 2024-2025 school year have demonstrated exceptional drive and passion and have each been awarded $5,000 to lead an innovative project in their area of interest.

Senior Shaw Fellows 2024-2025

Savannah Cote, Marine Affairs, Climate Change Studies, ’27
Hailey Haynes-Davis, Marine Biology, ’27
Tyler Janik, Aquaculture and Aquarium Science, Geographic Information Systems, ’27
Cloey Parlapiano, Environmental Science, Aquaculture and Aquarium Science, ’25
Isabel Ryan, Environmental Science, ’27

A group of seven students and two faculty members pose in the Makerspace

Meet the Innovation Fellows and Team

The Shaw Innovation Team is composed of students from diverse backgrounds and interests who have demonstrated creative thinking, curiosity, and teamwork. These students receive training in design thinking and real-world problem-solving, learning how to generate wild ideas, prototypes, and experiments and how to use empathy to become more innovative thinkers and doers. Each receives a $1,000 stipend, and collectively they work as a team to apply their change-making skills to select capstone projects.

In 2024-2025, the innovation team is working to bring a nutrition bar to market that uses ingredients such as seaweed and honey sourced from SWAG��Ƶ’s campus. Read about the SeaMade Bar in the news.

The Shaw Innovation Team is composed of students from diverse backgrounds and interests who have demonstrated creative thinking, curiosity, and teamwork. These students receive training in design thinking and real-world problem-solving, learning how to generate wild ideas, prototypes, and experiments and how to use empathy to become more innovative thinkers and doers. Each receives a $1,000 stipend, and collectively they work as a team to apply their change-making skills to select capstone projects.

Shaw Innovation Team 2024-2025

Ryan Garrant, Aquaculture and Aquarium Science, ’25
Vaughn Jennings, Marine Entrepreneurship, ’28
Cloey Parlapiano, Environmental Science, Aquaculture and Aquarium Science, ’25
Sarah Rossignol, Nutrition, Public Health, ’27
Jayden Schoppee, Nutrition, Athletic Training, ’28
Jasmin Townsend-Ng, Marine Biology, ’26

SWAG��Ƶ

Office of Innovation