Also a former California Sea Grant Trainee, Claire Waggoner earned a master's degree in biology from California State University, Long Beach in 2011 for her research linking anthropogenic contaminants (such as PCBs) to specific health impacts on wild fish collected from the Southern California Bight. She has been an analytical chemist at the Institute for Integrated Research in Materials, Environments, and Society at CSU Long Beach and an animal care volunteer at the Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro and the Long Beach Aquarium.
As a Sea Grant Fellow, she worked on amendments to the California Ocean Plan and other water-quality projects, covering a broad range of issues, including desalination, beach water quality and ocean acidification. Her activities included: participated in scientific studies, prepared environmental documents, attended public hearings, responded to public comments, made recommendations to policy makers, and prepared administrative records for any changes that the State Water Resources Control Board adopted.
