Rosa Schües (’25SPS, Human Capital Management) remembers the moment she first became preoccupied by the plight of the world’s two million merchant seafarers—she had stumbled across a Yale University study about their startlingly high suicide rates. At the time, she was working in a child psychiatric unit at a hospital in Hamburg, Germany, at a job that allowed her to apply her undergraduate studies in psychology. She had plans to become a therapist one day.
But Schües was born and raised in Hamburg, a port city with a deep, historical connection to the maritime world, and she came from a family with three generations in the maritime industry, including her grandfather, her father, and her two brothers.
"Growing up in Hamburg, the image I had of seafaring was a romantic one: sailing to different parts of the world, seeing new places, being out on the open water under the stars," she remembered. “I had no idea what their real lives looked like, what they struggled with, or what conditions on board were actually like." The Yale study's conclusions not only alarmed Schües, but they also made her want to learn more and to take action. But not as a therapist.
“My interest in the maritime sector came from my psychology background, but I realized that to have an impact in the industry, or any industry, you also have to understand the business side of it," she said. "It's not enough to say something is the right thing to do; you have to be able to show that it also makes financial sense. That's how you get real traction with stakeholders across the industry.”
So she began exploring a master's degree in human capital management and ultimately chose Columbia’s M.S. in Human Capital Management (HCM) program in the School of Professional Studies (SPS).
"A master's in human capital management sits right at that intersection—the psychology of work and the economics of it," she explained. "That's exactly what Columbia's program taught me: how do you prove that the change you're pushing for actually pays off for the business?"
Today, Schües works as a business analyst for Deloitte Consulting in Berlin, Germany, consulting on government and public sector projects, while remaining active in maritime research and policy work, topics that have taken on new urgency due to geopolitical developments in places like the Strait of Hormuz or the Baltic Sea.
She brings to her career not only the lessons she learned in the classroom during her time at Columbia but also the ones she learned pursuing a special research project into seafarer working conditions, officially titled “Seafarer Recognition and Employee Wellbeing,” under the guidance of Dr. Aaron Wallen, a senior lecturer for the HCM program. With funding from an SPS research grant, Schües was able to spend her summer semester in the program living, working, and conducting research on board two container ships, where she immersed herself in the lives and day-to-day realities of the seafarers who manned them.
“At SPS our value proposition is about theory and practice,” explained Dr. Steve Safier, who heads the HCM program. “While we will teach you about the field and go into the history and theory of why things happen, we really want you as the student to apply what you have learned.”
From the beginning of her time in the HCM program at Columbia, Schües said she was allowed to explore what she called her “niche interest”—the maritime industry—through the lens of her coursework.
“I was happy that my professors were very open to me applying every single presentation that we did, every single essay that we wrote, and every single exam that we took to the maritime shipping industry,” she said. “And I think my classmates deserve some credit too, because they had to listen to it as well. I hope they didn't get tired of me talking about ships all the time!
“Finally, I approached Dr. Safier, and I asked him if I could actually go onboard and do my study. Because you can only do so much research from the office or from the classroom, but if you don’t really experience life onboard yourself, then you will never know what it is actually like.”
Safier approved her request and directed her to Wallen and other important next steps.
“Rosa came in with a passion and said she was particularly interested in the shipping industry and seafarers,” Safier explained. “She wanted to learn about them through the theory of HR and through data collection and analysis. It’s a great example of how we want students to think and learn.”
Jumping in Feet First
Things moved relatively quickly from there, and Schües was assigned to work on her research project under Dr. Wallen, who helped her develop her method, construct the questions she would ask her fellow seafarers, and locate shipping companies willing to let her conduct her research aboard two commercial vessels.
First, however, Schües had to attend a maritime safety basic training course for two weeks in Amsterdam before she would be allowed onboard, per International Maritime Organization regulations. While she might have spent the weeks between her spring and summer semesters gearing up for summer internships or courses, instead she spent it learning how to respond to life-or-death emergencies.
“You receive theoretical training in a classroom, but you have a lot of practical training as well,” she explained. “I had to jump into a pool filled with very dark water that produced fake waves with all the lights turned off, and you really are in a simulation of an accident or ‘man overboard,’ which is how you call it in the maritime industry.”
Schües found the experience exhilarating.
"We were also running through a fire, in full fire protection gear, and doing a number of other things that really drove home how much seafarers put on the line just to do their jobs," she recalled. "It was intense, but it also made me even more excited to go onboard — I wanted to understand what they go through, not just read about it. I've always been an adventurous person, and this was my way of taking that seriously."
Schües then spent about two months on two ships: a car carrier transporting 5,000 cars from Bilbao, Spain, to Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and a container ship carrying general cargo from Hamburg to Bilbao. Each ship was manned by a crew of fewer than 25 seafarers. Schües spent about half her time onboard conducting her research, including in-depth interviews, and the rest working alongside the seafarers, doing the same jobs they did—not only to learn more about their work lives but also to gain their trust.
"Officially, as a seafarer, you're either working the deck or working the engine," she said. “I also did some of the 'watches,' which were always four hours at a time, twice a day, on the bridge where the navigation system is." she said. "Sometimes that meant waking up in the middle of the night, just you and the ocean, watching for hours."
The work was hard and repetitive, but it gave her concrete insight into the challenges faced by seafarers on container ships. One of the biggest surprises she encountered was learning that many of the crew members still got seasick, including hardened seafarers with more than 20 years' experience.
Making Seafaring Romantic Again
Schües is still sifting through the results of her research, with support from Wallen and other maritime industry stakeholders, including BIMCO, the world's largest international shipping association, and the IMO, the UN agency that regulates global shipping. Her experience onboard, combined with her interviews of crew members, has already allowed her to identify some of the biggest challenges faced by seafarers, such as low salaries, discrimination based on nationality, safety and security issues, and an overall lack of recognition.
“There are two million seafarers in the world, and almost no one knows they exist," she said. "You know a pilot when you see one, walking through the airport in uniform. You know when someone's served in the military. Nurses and doctors get recognized for what they do, too. But for seafarers, no one knows about the job they do besides them, even though they work very hard under very tough conditions. Take them away, and the world doesn't slow down — it collapses. No medicine moves. No materials to build anything move. Ninety percent of global trade travels by ship — which means two million seafarers are quietly doing one of the most essential jobs in the world, largely unnoticed."
“The population she is studying is one that doesn’t get as much attention,” agreed Wallen, her research advisor. “A lot of the writing in both human capital management and organizational psychology tends to focus on white-collar office work. Sometimes it might veer into topics like retail workers, maybe restaurant workers. It’s good to see research in the field focus once again on work outside an office setting."
Schües is quick to point out that the goal of her research is not to simply highlight what isn’t going well on board but to make the job attractive again in the face of declining numbers of people wanting to do it.
"What drives my research is trying to help make this profession attractive again," she said. "This used to be a romantic job—people got excited about it. You have to travel the world, see dozens of countries, and have a real adventure. If we want that back, we have to make life onboard better. That's what I hope to contribute to."
Going forward, Schües will continue to work with Wallen to bring the research to global conferences and to use it as a foundation for further research, including a survey that will reach more seafarers in the industry.
“I am excited for many more things to come,” she said. “I had this dream in my mind to go onboard. I never thought it was actually doable, but the HCM program supported me to do it.”
“We use a scholar-practitioner model across all our classes, and she is living the model we advocate for students to live, which is to come to the real world with a curiosity that is guided by past research, by concept, by theory, and marry those two together,” Wallen explained.
“One of the best things I could see a student do is get excited about doing their own research, asking their own questions, and trying to change the world in a positive way—I don’t know what else I can ask for,” he continued. “One day, hopefully, we’ll be teaching the findings of her study.”
About the Program
The Columbia University M.S. in Human Capital Management program prepares graduates to be world-class HCM strategists able to address changing needs in building and motivating talented, engaged workforces in the private, public, academic, and not-for-profit sectors.
Learn more about the program here. The program is available part-time, full-time, on-campus, and online.
