Frederic Partensky is a senior scientist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). He received his PhD from the Pierre and Marie Curie University (Paris VI) in 1989. Partensky is a specialist of marine picocyanobacteria, a major component of oceanic ecosystems. He is interested in their ecology, photophysiology and evolution. As a pioneer in the field of marine genomics, Partensky was granted in 2009 the Ocean Sciences Price by the French Academy of Sciences. His current research includes ecology, genomics and physiology of marine picocyanobacteria, as well as light-harvesting complexes.