Freitag is a social scientist with NCCOS. She works on the resilience and vulnerability portfolio as well as ecosystem service valuation, and contributes to integrating human dimensions into several of NOAA’s long-term monitoring programs.
Before joining the NCCOS social science team, Freitag held a joint position with the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office and Virginia Sea Grant, working toward ecosystem-based fishery management in the Chesapeake Bay. Before that she led the California Citizen Science Initiative at the California Ocean Science Trust. Freitag also worked with the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, to map subsistence resources in interior Alaska.
Freitag holds a Ph.D. from Duke University in Marine Science and Conservation, where her dissertation focused on integrating diverse knowledge types into water quality management in North Carolina. Freitag received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University, where she majored in Development Sociology and Biological Sciences. In between degrees she worked with University of Alaska Fairbanks to map subsistence resources in interior Alaska.