Nina Wurzburger, a PhD candidate in forest ecology, won her age group at the World Championship Duathlon in Fredericia, Denmark in August. The event involves a 20-kilometer run, a 120-kilometer bike ride followed by a 10-kilometer run. As a high school student Wurzburger competed on her high school swim and track teams and continued to run track and swim at the University of California-Davis. She began biking as a means of cross-training. She will compete in three more races this year, which she hopes will qualify her to compete in next years Duathlon in Brescia, Italy. “What a great excuse to go to Italy!” she says. Wurzburger is “training” for her Ph.D under the direction of forest ecologist Ron Hendrick.

Aaron MacNeil, who recently completed a master’s degree in fisheries, has been awarded a three-year International Postgraduate Scholarship of $45,000 to pursue a PhD at the University of Newcastle in England. His research will characterize the food web structure of the lemon shark nursery areas on Bimini Island in the Bahamas. The work will be conducted at the Bimini Biological Field Station, run by Samuel Gruber. MacNeil won the Gruber Award at the annual meeting of the American Elasmobranch Society in April with his talk, “Variable uptake and elimination of stable nitrogen isotopes in freshwater stingrays.” More recently, MacNeil was awarded a tuition waiver for foreign students to attend the University of Newcastle (worth about $25,000/year.) His work at WSFR has been under the direction of assistant fisheries professor Aaron Fisk.

Luana Vargas, a senior majoring in forest environmental resources, received the $1,000 Bartlett Tree Foundation, Inc. grant-in-aid for 2004, available to promising UGA undergraduates with a career interest in arboriculture. Vargas, who wants to specialize in urban tree management, worked with Clarke County urban forester Connie Head over the summer and plans to take the International Society of Arboriculture’s Aborist Certification Exam next year.