Santiago de Compostela, Thursday, 18 July 2024. The Presidency of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), following the candidacy endorsed at the IIM and discussed by the Scientific Faculty Board, and after the mandatory report from CSIC’s Scientific Advisory Committee, has appointed Beatriz Novoa García as the new director of the IIM.
She replaces Carmen González Sotelo, who had served as acting director since December 2023.
The new director has appointed the team that will accompany her in the management of the institute: Luis Taboada Antelo as scientific deputy director and Lucía Sánchez Ruiloba as technical deputy director.
Beatriz Novoa García (Vigo, 1966) holds a degree and a PhD in Biology from the University of Santiago de Compostela. She began her research career at CSIC in 1990 and, in 1997, obtained a tenured scientist position at the IIM, later being promoted to research scientist in 2006 and research professor in 2016.
She was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Aberdeen (United Kingdom) and completed her research training at the universities of Maryland, Maine, Harvard and Pennsylvania (United States).
She currently heads the Immunology and Genomics group and the Department of Biotechnology and Aquaculture. Her research focuses on the molecular bases of the immune response of marine organisms through gene-expression analysis. She also studies inflammatory processes associated with human diseases using zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a model, as well as antiviral immune responses. In recent years, her group has studied microbial diversity in the Vigo Ría using high-throughput sequencing and molecular-biology techniques.
She is the author of more than 260 scientific papers published in SCI journals, one book and 20 book chapters. She has a high impact index (H-index: 59) and appears in Stanford University’s ranking of the top 2% most influential scientists in the world, both for her whole career and for individual years (2023), as well as on the list of the most cited Spanish researchers.
She has been principal investigator of research projects funded through competitive national and European calls. She holds several patents and has received several awards, including those from the Galician Academy of Sciences and the 6th Jacumar Award for Aquaculture Research.
She has supervised or co-supervised 21 doctoral theses, as well as master’s and final-degree theses. She also participates in doctoral programmes in collaboration with different universities and teaches on the inter-university Master’s degrees in Aquaculture and in Genomics and Genetics of the three Galician universities.
She was Assistant Coordinator at ANEP, Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, in the Livestock and Aquaculture area from 2012 to 2019. She is editor-in-chief of the journal Frontiers in Aquaculture and sits on the editorial boards of Fish and Shellfish Immunology and Developmental and Comparative Immunology. From 2016 to 2023 she was president of the International Society of Fish and Shellfish Immunology and is currently its vice-president.
“Among other issues, from the IIM management team we will have to address the institute’s major space constraints and its move to ETEA,” Novoa states.
The IIM
The IIM is a CSIC institute with a strongly multidisciplinary profile that approaches marine research in an integrated way. As a research institution devoted to science for sustainable development, it aims to respond to global challenges and local concerns linked to the marine environment through research lines structured around three main pillars:
- Oceanic and coastal systems, to understand the relationship between oceans and climate and to support urgent action against climate change and other human impacts on the environment.
- Marine life and ecosystems, to investigate the mechanisms that enable the sustainable use of oceans, seas and marine resources, especially in fisheries, aquaculture and biodiversity conservation.
- Biological systems and processes, to generate knowledge that guarantees food safety and improves nutrition, health and human well-being, while also researching the development of technology-based bioproducts.
Internally, it consists of four highly interconnected departments: Oceanography; Ecology and Marine Resources; Biotechnology and Aquaculture; and Food Science and Technology, which host its research groups.