Geoffrey Schladow, a UC Davis civil and environmental engineer who has conducted extensive research at Lake Tahoe, has been named the founding director of the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center. The largest such facility west of the Great Lakes, the new center will serve as the focal point for university research and teaching at the alpine lake renowned for its beauty.
Schladow is an expert in how the currents and waves in lakes and estuaries affect the deposition of particles that induce algae growth and have caused Lake Tahoe's legendary clarity to decline. He is developing a computer model to link meteorological and remote-sensing information that eventually will give Tahoe decision makers a new management tool.
"Professor Schladow is uniquely suited to lead the Tahoe Environmental Research Center," said Dennis Rolston, director of the John Muir Institute for the Environment at UC Davis. "His recent work on the role of particles in reducing the lake's clarity is groundbreaking and has major implications for lake management. Geoff's research is broad and integrative and will help attract others to the center. He's an excellent communicator who conveys complex scientific and engineering issues to fellow scientists as well as lay audiences."
In addition to overseeing the development of world-class research facilities at Lake Tahoe, Schladow will be responsible for increasing involvement of faculty, students and visiting scholars in Lake Tahoe research. The new center is also intended to foster greater public awareness of conservation efforts.
"I'm thrilled with this opportunity," Schladow said. "The Tahoe Environmental Research Center will allow us to better understand what's happening in the Tahoe Basin and conduct the science and research needed for sound policy decisions."
Schladow earned his doctoral degree in civil engineering at the University of Western Australia and a master's degree in hydraulic engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He has been on the faculty of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Davis since July 1993.
The Australian native has also been a research fellow at the Centre for Water Research at the University of Western Australia, a research associate in the Department of Civil Engineering at Stanford University, a researcher with the marine sciences group at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories and has worked as an engineer with several private companies.
Schladow's current research focuses on mixing processes in lakes, estuaries, reservoirs, rivers, wetlands and coastal waters; numerical modeling for water quality; and fluid mechanics such as heat transfer and subsurface wave action. More detailed information on his research is available at the Web site of his UC Davis laboratory, located at http://edl.engr.ucdavis.edu/.
Laboratories, meeting rooms and office space of the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center will be housed at a new facility, the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences, to be constructed at Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village, Nev. Plans are also under way to renovate the old fish hatchery building in Tahoe City for continued use as a staging area for field work on and around the lake. UC Davis' research boat the John LeConte will continue to be docked at the Tahoe City Marina.
UC Davis began studying Lake Tahoe when limnology professor Charles Goldman began his career there in 1959. Since 1975, scientists in the Tahoe Research Group have worked in the crowded, leaky, unheated former fish hatchery near Tahoe City.
In 1994, UC Davis began fund raising to build the modern research facilities that Tahoe scientists needed. Donors from around the world gave $13 million, including $2.6 million from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The Thomas J. Long Foundation gave $2 million for a public education center. Sierra Nevada College proposed the shared facility in 2003.