Particles in Europe (PiE) 2025 17-19 September in Ostend, Belgium came and went in an instant! It was a great and very inspiring meeting with approximately 55 particle-interested oceanographers from all over the world attending. Thank you to everybody who contributed!! The attendees heard 35+ very engaging particle talks and poster presentations, in addition to two excellent keynotes from Dr. Brent Law, Fisheries and Oceans Canada / Pêches et Océans Canada, Canada and Professor Teresa Serra, Universidad de Girona, Spain. Download the conference abstract volume here to see for yourself ;)
Sequoia took the initiative to the PiE conference series in 2008 and since then it has been organized every other year in Europe with the help of a local organizing committee from the co-hosting institution(s). VLIZ – Flanders Marine Institute, Flanders Hydraulics – Waterbouwkundig Laboratorium and Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences turned out to be natural-born conference organizers. Thanks to Nore Praet, Yves Plancke and Michael Fettweis for all their work – you all made the task really easy for Sequoia! The VLIZ event team deserves a big shout out for all their work on the backend. Also a BIG thank you to conference sponsors Jan De Nul Group, DEME Group and Flanders Hydraulics and to our exhibitors Olpas, Rovin BV, TECPRIME, and Analis.
Dr. Arsalan Mostaani from Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Norway won the 2025 Eva & Yogi Agrawal Award for his 2023 PiE presentation ‘Measuring the size distribution of bubbles under breaking waves’. Congratulations to Dr. Mostaani – read the award committee’s reasoning here.
Apart from the oral and poster sessions, attendees enjoyed a guided walking tour of Bruges, a boat tour in the Bruges canal system, a visit to VIZ robotics Lab and Flanders Hydraulics’ tow tank, and a brewery tour and conference dinner at Brouwerij de Halve Maan.
The next PiE will happen in the fall of 2027 and for the first time ever, PiE will return to a prior venue: PiE 2027 will be co-organized by Sequoia and LOV – Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche (CNRS-SU) in Villefranche-sur-Mer, France! Local point-of-contact at LOV will be Dr. David Doxaran who also co-organized PiE in Villefranche-sur-Mer in 2010.
Exact dates for PiE 2027 should be finalized by early fall 2026 so make sure you get on the PiE mailing list for updates: http://eepurl.com/gQdIQz – see you in France in 2027 for the 9th slice of PiE!
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- View from the top of Brouwerij De Halve Maan
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- Eero Asmala, GTK, Finland demonstrates how to use Hyper-bb and LISST-200X data to discriminate particle populations.
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- Conference Dinner at Brouwerij De Halve Maan
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- Lunch on day 3 before PiE 2025 conclusion.
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- Professor Xiaodong Zhang, University of Southern Mississippi demonstrates how to measure particle sizes from 0.2 um and up with a LISST-VSF
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- Poster evaluations
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- Robotics lab @ VLIZ
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- Lunch on day 3 before PiE 2025 conclusion.
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- Scenery from boat tour in Bruges.
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- Conference Dinner at Brouwerij De Halve Maan
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- Lunch on day 3 before PiE 2025 conclusion.
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- Lunch on day 3 before PiE 2025 conclusion.
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- Eero Asmala and Yves Plancke with the prizes for being last speaker and winner of the ‘Bnest Poster’ award, respectively.
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- Lunch at VLIZ
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- VLIZ research vessel fleet
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- Scenery from guided walking tour in Bruges
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- PiE 2025 Icebreaker @ VLIZ Tuesday 16th September
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- Scenery from guided walking tour in Bruges
