Alex Marquardt and Anna Poslednik, graduate students at William and Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science, impressed at the recent Aquaculture 2022 conference in San Diego, California, both earning presentation awards bestowed by the National Shellfisheries Association.

The conference is a triennial joint meeting of the NSA, the World Aquaculture Society and the American Fisheries Society’s Fish Culture Section. It is the largest aquaculture meeting in the world with nearly 4,000 attendees from more than 90 countries.

Marquardt, a doctoral student with VIMS professor Roger Mann, received the 2022 Thurlow C. Nelson Award for her talk describing the distribution and size range of fossil oysters on the Atlantic continental shelf, and what that data reveals about the capacity of oysters past and present to keep pace with sea level rise.

Poslednik, a master’s student with VIMS professor Ryan Carnegie, received the 2022 Gordon Gunter Award for her poster presentation, which u...