The award will be presented at the 4th Annual CIMentos Assembly, to be held in October. She ranks among the world’s top 2% most influential scientists for her contributions to wave modelling
Romanian researcher Liliana Rusu, an expert in marine renewable energies, will receive the CIM Award 2026. This distinction recognises her outstanding scientific career, which has contributed to advancing knowledge on ocean energy resources and to the development of internationally recognised tools and methodologies in the field of ocean engineering.
A professor at Dunărea de Jos University of Galați, she has built an internationally renowned career focused on the study of wave dynamics, the assessment of wind and wave energy potential in different regions of the world, and the development of modelling tools for a better understanding and harnessing of marine energy resources. Rusu will receive the award at the 4th Annual CIMentos Assembly, to be held in Vigo next October.
A scientific career with international impact
Liliana Rusu is a researcher in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering of Dunărea de Jos University of Galați (Romania). She obtained her first doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from that same university in 2006 and completed a second doctorate in Marine Engineering and Naval Architecture at the University of Lisbon in 2009.
Throughout her career she has maintained a close collaboration with the Centre for Marine Technology and Ocean Engineering (Centec) at the University of Lisbon, first as a postdoctoral researcher and later as a collaborating professor.
Her main research lines cover wave modelling, the characterisation of maritime climate in different geographical areas, and the assessment of wave energy resources. She also works on the assimilation of observational data — including satellite data on sea state — to improve the predictive capacity of numerical wave models.
A leading voice in European marine research
Since 2017 she has been a member of the European Commission’s expert group on marine knowledge, and since 2016 she has served on Romania’s National Ethics Council for Research Activities. Between 2018 and 2023 she coordinated the Short-Term Scientific Missions of the WECANet project (A Pan-European Network for Marine Renewable Energy), one of the leading European networks dedicated to marine renewable energy research.
In 2024 she was elected a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy of Technical Sciences. Furthermore, since 2020 she has ranked among the world’s top 2% most influential researchers according to the classification compiled by Stanford University and Elsevier, both in the career-long and annual output categories.
Previous award recipients
The CIM Award annually recognises internationally prestigious researchers whose work has made a significant contribution to the advancement of marine sciences. In previous editions the award went to María Dornelas, from the University of St Andrews, for her pioneering studies on marine biodiversity, and to Enric Gisbert, from IRTA, for his contributions to aquaculture research.
CIM holds the CIGUS recognition from the Xunta de Galicia, which accredits the quality and impact of its research, and its activities are co-funded by the European Union through the ERDF Programme 2021–2027.
Source: DUVI
