KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Shannon Martin had finished all the work she needed to claim her bachelor's degree in biology, but there was still one bit of work she required of herself.
The 23-year-old University of Kansas senior crammed through her final exams in Lawrence, Kan., and flew to Costa Rica on Thursday to spend a week collecting a previously unstudied fern. She hoped to publish her work and then study abroad before applying to graduate schools.
About 3 a.m. Sunday, a week before she was supposed to walk down the hill for KU's commencement, an attacker fatally stabbed her several times, according to a U.S. Embassy official in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Martin, of Topeka, Kan., still will be awarded her bachelor's degree in biodiversity, ecology and evolutionary biology on Sunday.
Police are investigating her death. No arrests were reported Monday.
Martin had planned to spend a week in Golfito, near a national wildlife reserve in southern Costa Rica. She was collecting a fern that grows in trees and uses an unusual form of photosynthesis. Her research adviser at KU said her work might help biologists learn more about plant evolution.
Costa Rican police are investigating reports that she was walking home from a disco when she was attacked, according to a U.S. Embassy official.
Martin spent several months in Golfito last year and researched the fern for an honors program. She finished the work that the university required but returned to Costa Rica to gather enough information to publish her research.
"She squeezed this trip in and arranged to take all her finals early and finish her course work up so she could get this critical plant that she needed information on," said Craig Martin, her research adviser.
Craig Martin, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at KU who is not related to Shannon Martin, said she planned to spend the summer in a plant-ecology research internship at the University of Minnesota. She recently talked to him about pursuing a Fulbright scholarship to study abroad before going to graduate school.
"She was definitely a rising star in this business," Craig Martin said. "...She stands out for those reasons, combined with an incredible warmth. She was just genuinely a warm, affectionate person who was a joy to be around."
He plans to review the work she had hoped to publish, which was nearly complete, and submit it to a journal with her name as the primary author.
Another student plans to travel to Costa Rica soon and might bring back the fern Martin was studying, Craig Martin said.
The U.S. Department of State says Costa Rica is not particularly dangerous for Americans.
The department warns that some trails in Costa Rican national parks are closed because there are few visitors, and hikers have been robbed. Although crime there is increasing, most of it is not violent, the department says. The United States warns citizens to use the same level of caution that they would in any major city.
Police were trying to find out why Martin was killed, but were not focusing on her nationality as a reason.
"At this point, it's too early to say, but it doesn't look like she was targeted because she's an American," a U.S. Embassy official said.
Local police, the ministry of public safety and the Organization for Judicial Investigation, the Costa Rican equivalent of the FBI, are investigating. They accepted an offer of help from the FBI but were still working out the details Monday, the embassy official said.