Brittany Haywood, coastal ecology specialist for Delaware Sea Grant, received the Mid-Atlantic Sea Grant Region Early Career Achievement Award at the Mid-Atlantic Sea Grant Regional Meeting held at the end of April in Red Bank, New Jersey. 

The award is designed to recognize individual Sea Grant professionals who have shown noteworthy enthusiasm, performance, accomplishments and impact during their early Sea Grant careers. The Mid-Atlantic Sea Grant Early Career Achievement Award is the only Mid-Atlantic Sea Grant-sponsored award to recognize individual accomplishments during Sea Grant careers.

Haywood joined Delaware Sea Grant in 2023. The daughter of a waterman, Haywood has worked on the water her whole life and has held positions at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) in seagrass restoration and monitoring and water quality, as well as the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) in wetlands monitoring, assessment and drainage.

With Delaware Sea Grant, she has piloted a program to train community members to find submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) through the SAV Seekers program. She has also continued work looking for lost or abandoned crab pots in Delaware’s waterways.

Chris Petrone, director of Delaware Sea Grant’s Marine Advisory Service, said that Delaware Sea Grant is lucky to have Haywood as part of their team.

“Brittany came to Delaware Sea Grant with a wealth of experience and contacts from her past positions and she has leveraged them to grow our derelict crab pot work and convene an impactful group of people representing a host of organizations and agencies to ramp up the state’s awareness, interest, and action in creating and restoring submerged aquatic vegetation beds, in fresh and saltwater,” said Petrone.

Haywood said receiving the award was “completely unexpected. The work around submerged aquatic vegetation and derelict crab pots has always been about bringing people together to solve real coastal challenges, so it’s incredibly meaningful to have those efforts recognized by the Mid-Atlantic Sea Grant community.”