BEST ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE MARINE RESEARCH JOURNAL 2009

The Editor and Editorial Committee of AZTI-Tecnalia's RIM-Revista de Investigación Marina (Marine Research Journal) have agreed to award the prize for the best article published in the journal in 2009 to issue 16 of the RIM, entitled: "Optical measurements of ocean colour with the field-based High-Resolution Fiber Optic Spectrometer (HR4000CG) for remote sensing applications", whose authors are Stéfani Novoa, Guillem Chust and Jean-Marie Froidefond.

• First young author (studying for a doctorate) with a rigorous style and approach in a subject that has not been dealt with very much by AZTI-Tecnalia
• Quality of technical content, and difficulty in getting this work published in other journals
• Collaboration with centres outside AZTI-Tecnalia
• Development of an application for work that is undertaken at AZTI-Tecnalia

	STÉFANI NOVOA. She obtained a "Bachelor's Degree in Marine Science" at the University of San Diego in California (USA, 2002) and did a Masters in MER (Marine Environment and Resources) at the Universities of Southampton and the Basque Country (2006-2008). Between the two degrees she worked as a research assistant at the Torrey Pines Institute (San Diego, USA) and at the Australian Institute of Marine Science (Townsville, Australia). She began her PhD thesis at the AZTI-Tecnalia technology centre in December 2007 under the supervision of Doctor Guillem Chust, concentrating on estimating biophysical parameters using remote sensors. So far, two articles have been published on the subject (one of them is the one that has received the award on this occasion) and she has participated in three conferences to present the results obtained.
	GUILLEM CHUST. He holds a PhD from the University of Paul Sabatier (Toulouse, France, 2002). He did his PhD thesis at the Centre d'Etudes Spatiales de la Biosphère (CNES, CNRS), specialising in the processing of satellite data for its application in cartography, detection of habitat change and the modelling of animal and plant biodiversity. He has published 20 scientific publications in ISI journals (see www.researcherid.com/rid/C-1112-2008), with articles in Conservation Biology and Remote Sensing of Environment) and over 50 contributions (chapters in books, articles in national journals and participations in international conferences). Since joining the AZTI-Tecnalia technology centre in 2005, he has concentrated his research in two main areas: the study of the effects of climate change on coastal and estuary zones, and the application of remote sensors in marine ecology.
	JEAN-MARIE FROIDEFOND. PHd in 1982. Dr in Science, France. Researcher at the CNRS since 1976, specialized in remote sensing applied to the coastal areas (marine optic, turbid waters) at the EPOC laboratory (University of Bordeaux) since 1990. His activity concerns different coastal environments: French Guiana, Brasilian coast, turbid plumes of Amazon, Congo and Gironde estuaries. He is working with the aerospace agency (CNES), the French oceanographic survey (SHOM) and the Villefranche laboratory (LOV).

BEST REVIEWER OF AN ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE MARINE RESEARCH JOURNAL 2009

He has received the award for the following reasons:

• He carried out a thorough revision of the first document to be written by a student.
• In addition to giving her a large number of comments and corrections, he also supplied important information to improve the manuscript
• He completed the revision on time

JOXE MIKEL GARMENDIA. He did his PhD thesis at the University of Santiago de Compostela on the macrofauna of subtidal soft bottoms (cartography and population dynamics) of the estuary of Ares and Betanzos (A Coruña). Since 2005 he has been working at Azti-Tecnalia in the Environmental Management of the Marine Environment group, where his work focuses mainly on Ecotoxicology (execution of bioassays for the toxicological characterization of marine sediments) and in the marine environment of the Basque Country (evaluation and restoration of Zostera noltii populations, transplants). He has also participated in the collecting of samples of the Basque estuary and coastal waters Quality Network, characterisation of marine habitats, evaluation of shellfish resources, etc.

RIM awards 2008