Chilmark resident Martina Mastromonaco was announced as the grand prize winner of the Favorite New England Beach photo contest hosted by Woods Hole Group. Martina’s photo was of Chilmark Pond, Land Bank Beach.

To celebrate their 25th anniversary Woods Hole Group launched the contest in August and invited the public from around the country to submit photographs of their favorite New England beaches. Submissions were accepted via Facebook, e-mail and even mobile phone uploads.

Over 50 photos were submitted and the judges panel, made up of Greg Berman, Leslie Fields, Heather Goldstone, Tara Marden, and Chris Nielsen, awarded Ms. Mastromonaco an iPad 2 for her photograph of Chilmark Pond, Land Bank Beach.

Runner-up, Richard Stowe of West Yarmouth, won an Amazon.com gift card for his photo of Town Neck Beach in Sandwich. Third place tied between Brent Brown of Oak Bluffs for Moshup Beach in Aquinnah; Matthew Brown of Amherst, Ohio, for Paines Creek Beach in Brewster; and Victoria Smith of Falmouth for her photo of Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester. Each also received Amazon.com gift cards.

The contest was created as a way to help raise awareness of beach management and the protection of valuable coastal resources. Judges kept this in mind when deciding on the winner, looking for a photograph that simultaneously speaks to the inherent beauty and fragility of our beaches, and celebrates the variety of habitats in the coastal zone, from intertidal to beach to dune to salt marsh.

Woods Hole Group is an international, environmental, scientific, and engineering consulting organization headquartered in Falmouth, Massachusetts. With its breadth of vision and emphasis on a sustainable future global environment, Woods Hole Group provides premier integrated solutions to meet the challenge of environmental problems worldwide. As a leader in environmental sciences and engineering, Woods Hole Group’s expertise includes environmental impact and risk assessment, measurement systems for real-time operational guidance, oceanography, and coastal sciences, engineering and planning. Woods Hole Group is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2011.