Last Friday (31st Oct 2014) at DTU’s annual PhD graduation ceremony, Julie Sainmont was awarded with one of DTU’s Young Researcher Awards. Julie defended her PhD thesis on the 8th April 2014 with the title: “Strategies for success: Copepods in a seasonal world”, and was the first PhD graduating from the Centre for Ocean Life. Julie’s PhD thesis and project work as assessed to be one of the best coming out of DTU this year, and was awarded one of the 6 prizes that DTU gives out annually. In presenting the award, Martin P. Bendsøe, Senior Vice President and Dean of Graduate Studies, describe Julie as “a talented researcher with a unique blend of mathematical skills and ecological insight” and that she had “proven herself as a gifted communicator of scientific ideas, and a leader who is able to organize and guide a project to a successful conclusion”.