Charles R. Goldman, PhD

Charles R. Goldman

 

Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Limnology

Department of Environmental Science & Policy

University of California, Davis

 

Charles R. Goldman, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Limnology in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy, has been with the University of California, Davis 1958-2010.  He developed the first courses in limnology and oceanography at UC Davis, served as Chair of the Division of Environmental Studies from 1988-1992, and was founding Director of the Institute of Ecology, serving from 1966-1969 and again in 1990-92.  Prior to his 52-year tenure at UC Davis, he earned Bachelor and Masters degrees from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in Limnology-Fisheries from the University of Michigan.  He has supervised 100+ graduate students and 34 postdoctoral researchers during his five decades at UC Davis.  Professor Goldman's many prestigious awards include an NSF Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship in 1964 for limnological research in the Arctic (Lapland), a Guggenheim Fellowship in northern Italy in 1965, the "Goldman Glacier" in Antarctica named in 1967, served as President of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography in 1967-68, awarded the Antarctic Service Medal by Congress in 1968, and elected a Fellow by the California Academy of Sciences in 1969.  In 1973-74, he was elected Vice President of the Ecological Society of America, and accepted a Fulbright Distinguished Professorship to Yugoslavia in 1985.  He was awarded the Vollenweider Lectureship in Canada in 1989, the Chevron Conservation Award and Culver Man-of-the Year in 1991, the Earle A. Chiles Award in 1992, the UC Davis Distinguished Public Service & Research Lecturer awards in 1993, the inaugural UC Davis Distinguished Graduate Mentoring Award in 2002, the Nevada Medal and UC Davis Distinguished Professor in 2003, and the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography’s Alfred Redfield Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. He was elected Vice President of the International Society of Limnology (SIL) for 1992-98, presented the prestigious Baldi Lecture at the triennial SIL Congress in Ireland in August 1998, and served as an elected national representative to the world body.  He was appointed the inaugural President of the World Water and Climate Network in 2003. He was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Tahoe Baikal Institute from 2009-10, and was appointed adjunct Professor at the University of Nevada and Desert Research Institute in 2010. Dr. Goldman has published four books and over 450 scientific articles, and has produced four documentary films that are in worldwide distribution.  He has served on many national and international committees and is frequently sought for consultation and research missions to foreign countries on major environmental problems.  In 1990 he was a member of a UNESCO team to qualify Lake Baikal as an International Heritage Lake and Senior Scientist for the National Geographic Baikal project.  His single most important and sustained contribution is the five decades of research on Lake Tahoe.  Professor Goldman is Director of the Tahoe Research Group and has pursued long-term ecological research simultaneously at Lake Tahoe and Castle Lake, California, since 1958. He successfully combined effective research and social action with his pioneering studies of lake eutrophication.  These were applied to engineering solutions, social needs, and legal decisions.  This work has recently included the development of artificial wetlands and research on alternatives to road salt for deicing highways.  The relationship of science to political change has been of particular importance to the Lake Tahoe basin.  During the summer of 1997, Dr. Goldman hosted President Clinton and Vice President Gore aboard the UC Davis research vessel John Le Conte during the Lake Tahoe Presidential Forum.  Similar studies have extended Dr. Goldman's research-social action efforts to analysis of lakes like Baikal in Russia and hydroelectric projects throughout the world. While pursuing basic research on lake dynamics, he has also translated the findings directly to state, national and international policy decisions, contributing decisively to the conservation and judicious use of aquatic resources from the Antarctic to the lakes and wetlands of South and Central America, New Guinea, Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States. Professor Goldman’s career work has been honored with the 1998 Albert Einstein World Award of Science, presented at a formal ceremony held in New Zealand.  The Einstein Award, bestowed annually to a single individual by a council of eminent scientists that includes 25 Nobel laureates, recognizes those who have accomplished scientific and technological achievements that have advanced scientific understanding and benefited humanity.