A West Virginia University graduate student picked up four awards recently at the World Aquaculture Society meeting in Louisville, Ky. Melody Danley of Martinsburg, a Ph.D. candidate in the Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences Division of Forestry, won the M.P. Mulvihill Aquaculture Student Scholarship, an annual award of $1,200 and one of the highest honors available to aquaculture students.

Danley, who works with Patricia Mazik, unit leader of the West Virginia Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, also took first place in the student poster competition for”Harvest of Arctic char in recirculating aquaculture systems,”and second place in the presentation competition for”Safe levels of carbon dioxide for Appalachian salmonid culture.”

Rounding out the event, Danley received the Student Activities Committee Achievement Award for participation and contribution to the Society’s National Student Chapter.

Her research focuses on two areas of applied aquaculture. Both areas involve carbon dioxide.

“The first area is focusing on how carbon dioxide can best be used to harvest or transport food fish, specifically char and trout,”she explained.”I have also been investigating a potential new fish drug currently being reviewed by the FDA called AQUI -S (a commercial form of clove oil) for the same purpose of harvest or transport of food fish.”

The second area of Danley’s research involves how best to grow fish (how to feed them, what to feed them, etc.) in water that has elevated carbon dioxide.

“Carbon dioxide is a common theme in my work because it is a big problem in many of the spring waters used for growing fish in this region of Appalachia,”she noted.

Danley is thrilled and surprised by her strong showing at the event.

“It’s difficult to obtain one award of any type at these meetings,”she said,”but winning four is beyond shock. There were probably around 1,000 people attending the conference, and a couple of hundred of those were students.”