HAYS, Kan. -- At the MidAmerica GIS Consortium, also known as the MAGIC symposium, Fort Hays State University's Kathryn Prinslow, Kiowa, Colo., graduate student, pulled some tricks out of her sleeve and performed some magic of her own.

At the symposium in April in Kansas City, Mo., Prinslow won first prize for her thesis-based poster "Comparing Atmospheric Plume Models Using Lagrangian and Guassian Algorithums to Simulate a Bio-terrorism Attack." Prinslow's poster was selected for the top student project prize, "Best Student Project for Innovative use of GIS."

"The conference was not only good for me for future career networking, but it also was a great opportunity to show off some of my thesis work," said Prinslow.

Prinslow graduated from FHSU in 2009 with a degree in geography. She plans a career using GIS in developing hazard and bio-terrorism preventative or safety modeling systems.

MAGIC is a nonprofit educational organization established to foster the applications of geographic information systems (GIS) and related spatial technologies in the mid-continent region.

The conference takes place every two years and serves Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

For more information, contact Prinslow at (303) 842-6230 or by e-mail at kaprinslow@scatcat.fhsu.edu. Questions may also be directed to Prinslow's advisor, Dr. Tom Schafer, at (785) 628-5969 or by e-mail at tschafer@fhsu.edu.