Merit: Sarah Lewis is congratulated by Prof Phil Hockey (left) and sponsor Peter Johnson.

Sarah Lewis has been named the top student in the 2010/2011 class of the master's programme in conservation biology, run by the Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology.

Lewis, who was born and trained in England but has since discovered a passion for African conservation, is one of four students in the class who completed the course with distinction.

In her project, supervised by Assoc Prof Peter Ryan, Lewis looked at the Boulders Beach colony of Spheniscus demersus, aka the African penguin, as an ecotourism resource.

The class award is sponsored by the Johnson Family Trust, and is made in celebration of the Fitztitute's 50th anniversary in 2010.