April 19, 2010

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A team of students from California State University, Monterey Bay took first place in the Currents Symposium research poster contest sponsored by the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

The Sanctuary Currents Symposium is an annual event for researchers, educators, students and the public to learn about research being conducted in the sanctuary. Awards are presented for outstanding research posters; scientists are honored for advancing the knowledge of marine science; and organizations that have contributed to the mission of the sanctuary are acknowledged.

This year, the symposium was held at CSU Monterey Bay on April 10. The topic was Voices of Hope: Science and Innovation for the Ocean.

CSUMB won the top honor in the undergraduate division for a poster reflecting this year's theme. The research project involved a 10-year comparison study of landscape changes in California's most common seafloor habitat - the shallow, sandy plains that are home to many flat fish and invertebrate species. The work was done as a project by students in Professor Rikk Kvitek's applied coastal remote sensing class. Jessica Riggin took second in the undergraduate category and Jessica Watson was runner-up in the graduate student division for their research posters. All told, 17 CSUMB graduates – nine undergraduates and eight graduates – presented their research.

Dr. Kvitek received the prestigious Ed Ricketts Memorial Award and delivered the Ricketts Memorial Lecture. Over the last two decades, he has focused on applied projects in Monterey Bay and Elkhorn Slough. At CSUMB, he created and directs the Seafloor Mapping Lab.