Newlywed killed in hiking tragedy was readying for doctorate at Harvard

By Nate Giarnese

Harvard University Monday identified the Danish newlywed who died hiking near the Kancamagus Highway over the weekend as a PhD student only a month away from receiving her doctorate.A spokesman said Stine Rossel, 31, had spent nearly a decade working on a PhD archeology when a 24-foot log, 3 feet in diameter, cracked underneath her and her husband Saturday, also identified for the first time Monday as PhD student Brian Wood. The couple, who had sat down on the felled tree for a snack, was sent crashing down a slope off the Boulder Loop trail near the Albany Covered Bridge. Efforts by rescuers and Wood, 31, who was not badly inured, failed to revive the woman.Harvard College of Arts and Science spokesman Bob Mitchell Monday said Rossel had completed her degree program after nine years and was to be awarded her doctorate in a formal university ceremony in November.Wood gave CPR to his dying wife and declined medical aid when rescuers arrived, N.H. Fish and Game said. The two had been married for only two months and lived in different countries, but were planning soon to move in together, according to reports. Mitchell said Wood was a teaching fellow in the fourth year of a bio-anthropology program and not an assistant professor, as cited in an early report from a conservation officer and reported in the news on Monday. He was not a professor of any kind, Mitchell said.Rossel lived in Copenhagen, Denmark. When tragedy struck on the leisurely hike, she was on a 10-day visit, according to the Associated Press.Harvard was planning a memorial but had not shored up details, Mitchell said.