In a unanimous vote, Juan Carlos Castilla, a professor of marine ecology at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, was honored with the 2010 National (Chile) Award for Applied Science and Technology. The prize consists of 16 million pesos and a monthly annuity of approximately 700,000 pesos.
Castilla was awarded the prize for his work on Chile's benthic resources, in particular, and for generating scientific knowledge that underpins all Chilean national legislation on coastal marine resource management, in general. Castilla said he was grateful for the recognition and insisted that society should make efforts to be responsible to sustainable development. “I like that applied science is considered and consulted when it comes to designing public policy,” he said.