Student Samantha Marshall receives fully-funded scholarship to study in Norway

A StFX honours biology and aquatic resources student is one of only two Canadian students awarded a fully-funded scholarship to study in Norway next term.

Samantha Marshall of Tottenham, ON received the Fellowship for Studies in the High North, scholarships for Canadian students to study from January to June, 2010 at Bodø University College (BUC) along the western coast of Norway. The fellowship is offered by the Norwegian government, through the Faculty of Biosciences and Aquaculture at BUC. It covers the cost of travel to and from Bodø, Norway, fees for attending BUC, and student housing while in Norway. Marshall will take courses that will go toward her StFX degree. 

“There were only two fellowships available for Canadian students and we are very pleased that Sam was awarded one of the two,” says Aquatic Resources Program Officer Lynn Patterson. 

“It’s quite a privilege when you think about it,” Marshall says. “On top of the personal development you hope to get out of it, it’s a chance to make a lot of connections with researchers and professors, which may open up opportunities in the future.

“It’s an opportunity to study abroad and I want to do my master’s in aquaculture so it’s a chance to try it out before my master’s.”

Marshall says her studies in Norway will really complement what she’s done at StFX.

She has been a dean’s list student, and has conducted independent research on freshwater mussels, a species at risk in Canada, during her aquatic resources work term with the St. Mary’s River Association in Sherbrooke. She’s also volunteered with the Community Aquatic Monitoring Program, and with biology professor Randy Lauff on his owl monitoring project. In September she spent two weeks aboard a DFO research cruise, counting fish in the Gulf of St. Lawrence off Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI and Quebec.