DURHAM, N.C. – Miguel J. Schwartz, a PhD student in ecology at the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at 91, has been named the recipient of the 2005-06 F.K. Weyerhaeuser Forest History Fellowship, presented by the Forest History Society.

The Weyerhaeuser Fellowship annually provides an $11,000 stipend to support the research of a 91 graduate student whose research examines forest and conservation history.

Schwartz received the 2005-06 award in support of his project, “The Spatial and Temporal Pattern of Land Use History (1800-2000) in the Central Piedmont of North Carolina.”

The Forest History Society is a nonprofit educational institution that supports research, publication and education in the fields of forest, conservation and environmental history.

Endowed in 1986, the Weyerhaeuser Fellowship honors timber industry giant Frederick King Weyerhaeuser, who co-founded the Society in 1946.

Schwartz has been a student in the University Program in Ecology since 2001.

Other Nicholas School students who recently have won the Weyerhaeuser Fellowship are:

  • Elaine Lai, a Master of Environmental Management and Master of Public Policy students, who won the 2003-04 fellowship for her research on conservation planning in southeastern Mexico, and
  • Benjamin Poulter, a PhD candidate, who won the award in 2002-03 in support of his research on the response of a coastal North Carolina forest to recent sea-level rise and land use change.