DRI NEWS RELEASE
Dr. Charles Goldman has spent 50 years studying Lake Tahoe’s water clarity
No one has spent more time studying Lake Tahoe’s water clarity than Dr. Charles R. Goldman, who has agreed to become an adjunct professor in the Division of Hydrologic Sciences at DRI.
“Dr. Goldman is synonymous with Lake Tahoe and science,” said Stephen Wells, Ph.D., DRI President. “He has had a stellar career at UC Davis, but we’ve also been privileged to share him as a former DRI Nevada Medalist and DRI Foundation Trustee. I’m thrilled that he has agreed to continue his research with DRI. He will be an invaluable resource for our ongoing Tahoe research efforts, the basin’s environmental policy makers, the mentorship of our faculty, and our fund raising efforts.”
Professor Goldman will investigate opportunities with DRI faculty for regional, national and international research related to water quality and management issues. He will collaborate with faculty on limnological projects and emerging research directions as well as interact on collaborative projects with active national and international teams working on climate change and watershed management.
Goldman has published four books and more than 400 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 his 50-year career at UC Davis, he supervised more than 100 graduate students and 32 postdoctoral researchers. Prior to his tenure at UC Davis, he earned bachelor and master’s degrees from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in limnology-fisheries from the University of Michigan.
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, leading to applied engineering solutions, social needs, and legal decisions including the development of artificial wetlands and research on alternatives to conventional road salt for deicing highways. This relationship of basic science to political change has been of particular importance to the Lake Tahoe basin. During the summer of 1997, Goldman hosted President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore on his research vessel, which would become the first of annual Lake Tahoe Forums.
Similar studies have extended Goldman’s research-social action efforts to analyses of lakes such as Baikal in Russia and hydroelectric impoundments throughout the world. Thus, while aggressively pursuing basic research on lake dynamics, he has also been able to translate 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 a most prestigious award: the 1998 Albert Einstein World Award of Science, presented at a formal international 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. He became Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Tahoe Baikal Institute in 2009.
