José Rioja Martín
(Madrid, 1866 - 1945)

José Rioja Martín obtained a Bachelor of Sciences degree in 1884, and a Ph.D. in Natural Sciences in 1887 from the Universidad Central in Madrid. In 1886, he obtained an assistant professorship of Natural History at the University of Valladolid, and became a member of the Real Sociedad Española de Historia Natural. In 1899, he won the chair of Natural History at the University of Oviedo.

He was a zoologist by training, a disciple of Ignacio Bolívar, and active participant in the establishment of the Marine Biological Station of Santander, created in 1886, and in which he became assistant to Augusto González Linares in June 1887 He completed his training in marine biology at the Stazione Zoologica of Naples, where he lived during the years 1889 and 1890 and for shorter periods, in 1900 and 1902. After Gonzalez Linares’s death in 1904, he became director of the Maritime Station of Santander, under the National Museum of Natural Sciences since 1901. It was integrated into the National Institute of Physical and Natural Sciences dependent on the Junta para Ampliación de Estudios (JAE) in1910. He remained in Santander until April 1914, when all marine stations became part of the Instituto Español de Oceanografía. José Rioja was then transferred to Madrid.

In November 1918, he obtained the chair of Zoography of Lower Animals and Mollusks (non-arthropod invertebrates), in the Faculty of Sciences at the Universidad Central. José Rioja was championing the cause of zoologists linked to the National Museum of Natural Sciences, eager to have a maritime station to conduct fieldwork and to advance, with his students at the Universidad Central, in the knowledge of the discipline. After several unsuccessful attempts, the Ministry of Education approved, in June 1922, the establishment of a maritime station in Marín (Pontevedra). Rioja and his son, Enrique Rioja Lo-Bianco, selected the location and the building that would house its first installations.

The advent of Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship delayed the opening of the Biological Station of San Rafael until the summer of 1932. Despite his advanced age, Rioja was appointed director of that station, which was under the National Natural Science Museum and was funded by the JAE. The program of activities of the Marine Biological Station in Marín was very similar to that developed by the Santander station while it was linked to the Museum of Natural Sciences. It aimed to train graduate students in science, to offer a basic structure for the Museum’s researchers to conduct their fieldwork of marine exploration, to gather items for the Museum's collections, and to enhance the development of the local fishing industry. The Marin’s Biological Station was active until 1935, though the summer courses and research campaigns of 1936 were never carried out because of the Civil War.