• Craig L. Smith Memorial Scholarship
• Kelley Watson Fellowship
• John M. & Marilyn Zeigler Student Achievement Award
• William J. Hargis Jr. Fellowship Award
• The Matthew Fontaine Maury Student Fellowship Award
• Best Student Paper Awards
• 2005 Service Awards

This scholarship is awarded annually to an academically distinguished graduate student to honor the memory of its namesake, former Professor of Environmental Science Dr. Craig Smith.

This year the Smith Scholarship is awarded to Rob Condon for his outstanding contributions to research.

Rob Condon is a hardworking, creative, and sharp student; one who is a pleasure to have in a research group as well as in a class. For his dissertation research, Rob is studying the effect of gelatinous zooplankton on organic matter, nutrient cycling, and bacterial communities in Chesapeake Bay. He hit the ground running from the beginning, and has become well versed in the impressive variety of field and laboratory methods required for his project. As a result Rob has already made significant strides in understanding planktonic food webs and nutrient cycling in the Bay. Rob's instructors often remark on his inquisitiveness and enthusiasm, and he makes excellent use of his committee members and the larger VIMS community by bouncing his ideas around. Rob is also a natural leader, organizing graduate student activities, new courses, and adding to the culture of VIMS as a whole. Rob, a native Aussie, has also had to overcome the bureaucratic nuisances—or as he might say, "sticky wickets"—that a foreign student must endure these days, and has admirably balanced his research with the responsibilities of being a new father. Rob shows excellent promise as a scientist, and we are delighted to recognize him with the Craig L. Smith Memorial Educational Scholarship.

Congratulations, Rob. | top

Amanda Lawless	Ana Verissimo

The Kelley Watson Fellowship recognizes a student who exhibits academic excellence and leadership and has excelled in the core courses during the first year of graduate study. The fellowship is named in memory of Kelley Watson, a member of the incoming class of September 2000 who impressed her teachers and fellow students with her enthusiasm, commitment to academic excellence, and strong promise for a successful marine science career.

This year the core course instructors have enthusiastically nominated TWO recipients of the Kelley Watson Fellowship, Amanda Lawless and Ana Verissimo.

Amanda is an intelligent, mature student who worked as an environmental consultant before returning to graduate school for a Master's degree. She has demonstrated a keen grasp of difficult scientific concepts and the attention to detail that is requisite of a superior scientist. Amanda is thorough and effective in her research activities, as well as in her scientific presentations. She also continually asks probing questions that demonstrate her desire for a deeper understanding of the concepts of marine science.

During her first year at VIMS, Amanda exhibited academic excellence in the core courses and has demonstrated strong leadership qualities through her interactions with classmates and instructors. She has been an eager learner with a strong work ethic and sense of responsibility. She has been described as having a "seriousness of purpose," and is well organized, dependable, and makes sure that important tasks are successfully completed. Her leadership qualities shine during group activities, and she is well liked by her peers.

Congratulations, Amanda!

Ana Cristina Verissimo has been selected as co-recipient of the 2006 Kelly Watson Fellowship. The core course instructors recognized Ana not only for her exceptional academic performance in the first year courses, but also for her spirit, enthusiasm, and leadership abilities.

A native of Portugal, Ana received her undergraduate training and a licenciatura degree in biology from the University of Lisbon in 2001. She then participated in a variety of research projects, including several research cruises, and already has three publications to show for her efforts. Ana's research interests are focused on the stock structure and conservation biology of deep-sea sharks. She received a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship in 2005 to pursue these studies at VIMS, and is well on her way to developing her dissertation prospectus. Given her motivation, enthusiasm, and academic excellence, Ana shows great promise for success with her research endeavors. We applaud her on her significant achievements thus far, and cheer her on toward future successes!

We wish Amanda and Ana the best of luck and congratulate both of them on this award. | top

The Zeigler Student Achievement Award honors the past contributions to student needs of Dr. John Zeigler, the first SMS Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, and the continuing contributions of Mrs. Marilyn Zeigler. The award is presented annually for recognition of scholarly, professional, and personal integrity, and for the contributions made to the VIMS through enthusiastic participation in its academic and research programs.

This year's award recipient is Debra Lambert.

Debra was one of the brightest, most independent, hard-working graduate students in the School of Marine Science. Whether in research, in coursework, or in service activities, Debra gave 110%. With reference to the Zeigler Award, Debra applied her thesis research in a broader arena, specifically to coastal management issues. Debra used state-of-the-art tag-recapture methods to estimate survival rates of the blue crab and to evaluate the effectiveness of the spawning sanctuary in Chesapeake Bay, neither of which had been done previously. Her work convincingly demonstrated that survival rates of mature females are extremely low, and that the spawning sanctuary is an effective tool in reducing fishing mortality on the blue crab spawning stock. Her work also serves as one of the few worldwide examples of the effectiveness of marine protected areas in the conservation and restoration of exploited estuarine and marine species.

Debra is thus a perfect example of a student who works hard, applies her research to issues of general importance in conservation, and who willingly and unselfishly devotes herself to achieve solutions to the world's environmental problems. Debra was recently awarded a National Sea Grant Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship, and is currently working in NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service headquarters in D.C. on national marine policy issues.

Deb is an outstanding young scientist in every respect and truly deserves to be the recipient of the Zeigler Award.

Congratulations, Deb! | top

Dr. Hargis established this annual award to recognize a first-year graduate student based on superior academic performance and a demonstration of exceptional promise in marine research. Nominations for the Hargis Fellowship are made by instructors in the first-year core courses and forwarded to the Dean of Graduate Studies.

The winner of the William J. Hargis, Jr. Fellowship for 2005 is Andre Buchheister.

In his first year at VIMS, Andre demonstrated a broad range of academic and personal excellence. His core instructors unanimously ranked him at the top of his first-year class due to his performance in the core courses and the spirited enthusiasm with which he pursued his studies. Outside of the classroom, Andre's consistently positive attitude and commitment to helping others earned him the respect and admiration of his peers and the SMS faculty. Simply put, Andre is an excellent student and an outstanding person.

In 2002, Andre received his B.S degree from Duke University and accepted a position as a Research Fisheries Biologist at the NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, WA. While at NOAA, Andre participated in several research cruises studying the recruitment and predator-prey dynamics of groundfishes in the Gulf of Alaska and Eastern Bering Sea. This work resulted in the submission of two first-authored manuscripts. Andre is currently developing a research project that will use isotope geochemistry to characterize the food-web dynamics of top predatory fishes on a variety of spatial and temporal scales within Chesapeake Bay.

His motivation, enthusiasm, and academic excellence strongly suggest that Andre will be highly successful in his research endeavors. This award is an acknowledgement of his significant achievements to date, and an indication of his tremendous potential.

Congratulations, Andre! | top

The Matthew Fontaine Maury Student Fellowship Award is made possible by a gift and pledge of Retired U.S. Navy Captain J. Maury Werth to honor his great-grandfather Matthew Fontaine Maury, a son of Virginia often referred to as the "Father of Oceanography" and the "Pathfinder of the Seas." The Maury Award recognizes interdisciplinary achievements in marine and environmental scholarship, research, and/or policy/management efforts, and outstanding publications, thesis, or dissertation work.

This year's winner is Dr. Joel Hoffman.

Joel could not be with us today because he recently left to start a three-year post-doctoral position at an EPA laboratory in Duluth, Minnesota. Joel received his certificate for this award and the following citation at the William and Mary Graduation ceremony on May 14th.

Joel received a B.S. with honors in Resource Ecology and Management and a B.A. with highest distinction in Philosophy from the University of Michigan. He arrived at VIMS in the fall of 2002 and shortly thereafter received a prestigious NSF Graduate Fellowship.

While at VIMS his research program successfully merged the disparate fields of fisheries science and biogeochemistry to address research questions that would be intractable with either discipline alone. His work has already provided new insights on the process of recruitment in anadromous fish populations. Some of his results point to a need to re-examine traditional views of the early life history of American shad.

Joel defended his Ph.D. dissertation in March, which included five data-rich chapters that combined ecology, fisheries science, and biogeochemistry.

During his time at VIMS he clearly demonstrated talents as an independent, critical, and synthetic thinker merging diverse disciplines to great advantage. The breadth and sophistication of his research program and its interdisciplinary nature makes him a deserving recipient of the Maury Student Fellowship.

Congratulations, Joel! | top

Each year a committee of faculty and students must undertake the difficult task of choosing the best journal articles from the many high-quality papers written by VIMS graduate students. Each paper considered is either accepted, in press, or published in a high-quality, peer-reviewed journal. The papers truly reflect the superb quality of the research conducted by VIMS students and the outstanding mentoring of their advisors.

This year's choice for the best paper by a Master's student goes to Ms. Adriana Veloza for her article entitled "Trophic modification of essential fatty acids by heterotrophic protists and its effects on the fatty acid composition of the copepod Acartia tonsa," which appeared in Marine Biology. Co-authors are Fu-Lin Chu and Kam Tang.

Adriana's paper evaluated the ability of two heterotropic protists to convert precursor molecules from low-quality algal food sources into essential fatty acids that can be transferred to higher levels of the food chain.

The choice for the best paper by a PhD student goes to Ms. Kristin France for her article entitled "Diversity and dispersal interactively affect predictability of ecosystem function." Kristin's paper has been accepted by the journal Nature and was co-authored by Emmett Duffy.

Kristin's paper examined the effects of diversity and connectivity on ecosystem stability. Since both habitat fragmentation and species loss are at the forefront of conservation concerns, this paper is likely to significantly impact the field of ecology and stimulate many similar studies in other ecosystems.

Congratulations Adriana and Kristin. | top

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