Zachary Zoller Wins 2012 Johnson Opportunity Grant at Washington and Lee University

LEXINGTON, VA (05/23/2012)(readMedia)-- Zachary Zoller of Salem, Va., a junior biology major at Washington and Lee University, has been selected for the spring/summer 2012 Johnson Opportunity Grant. The Johnson Program in Leadership and Integrity awards 25-30 grants each year.

Zoller will travel to South Africa to be an intern with Project Great White Shark in Mossel Bay. the project is run by Oceans Research and includes population, behavioral, ecological, physiological and socioeconomic studies centered on the great white shark population of the area.

Zoller's research duties will include assisting in running the research vessels and the shark lab and aquarium-based research projects such as tonic immobilization of the wild sharks. His more direct contact with the sharks will include tagging and genetic sampling, manual acoustic tracking and recording and entering behavioral data.

He is a member of the varsity football team at W&L.

The grants cover living, travel and other costs associated with the students' proposed activities, which are designed to help them with their future careers and fields of study. The grants vary in amount from $1,000 to $4,500 and are funded as part of the Johnson Program in Leadership and Integrity.