Charles R. Goldman, professor and chair of the environmental studies division at the University of California, Davis, and an internationally recognized authority on the ecology of lakes, received the campus's 1993 Distinguished Public Service Award today.
The annual award, which includes a $1,000 honorarium, recognizes faculty members who have made significant public service contributions to the community, state, nation and world throughout their academic careers. It was established three years ago by the Representative Assembly of the Academic Senate, the governing body of UC Davis professors.
Since he joined the UC Davis faculty in 1958, Goldman has devoted his career to studying the effects of environmental pollutants on lake ecology. Much of his work has focused on Lake Tahoe in California and the factors contributing to the decline in the lake's clarity.
"Dr. Goldman's research, publications and documentary films have benefited the California populace and significantly impacted the decision-making process in the state for over three decades," said John E. Kinsella, dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
"While aggressively pursuing basic research on lake dynamics, Dr. Goldman 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 swamps of South and Central America, New Guinea, Africa, Europe and the United States," Kinsella said.
Throughout his career, Goldman has successfully translated scientific research into public policy and social action. In the 1960s, when his research documented that the discharge of sewage into Lake Tahoe was contributing to the decline in the popular California lake's clarity, Goldman convinced officials to begin exporting all sewage and solid waste from the Tahoe basin. He also was instrumental in showing the need for and promoting development of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency in 1970 to regulate development and land use in the Tahoe basin.
In the late 1960s Goldman established the Tahoe Research Group at UC Davis to conduct studies in limnology, hydrology, botany, soil science, meteorology and social sciences in the Tahoe basin. The research program, which he directs, now addresses a variety of problems ranging from acid rain to the accelerated nutrient yield and resultant algal growth.
Goldman's research has taken him to every continent on the globe, from Oregon's Crater Lake to Antarctica, where a glacier was named in honor of his research. Taking the lessons learned at Lake Tahoe around the world, Goldman has led several expeditions to Russia's Lake Baikal, the oldest and deepest lake on earth. He was part of the United Nations' expedition that recommended declaring Lake Baikal an international heritage lake. In 1991 he founded the Tahoe-Baikal Institute to sponsor exchange between students in the United States and Russia who are interested in environmental management.
In addition to publishing four books, Goldman has produced four educational films, including three films on Lake Tahoe and one on environmental protection for the tropics. He has served on several professional panels, advising the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences and other national and international organizations. He frequently receives invitations to lecture at scientific conferences around the world.
Goldman received the 1992 Faculty Research Lecture Award, an honor conferred by the UC Davis Academic Senate in recognition of a member's distinguished record in research. In 1992 he was presented the Earle A. Chiles Award for his authoritative research on inland deep-water ecosystems in the American West; in 1991 he received the Chevron Conservation Award for his studies on lakes Tahoe and Baikal.
He received his bachelor's degree in geology and a master's degree in zoology from the University of Illinois, Urbana, and his doctoral degree in fisheries and limnology from the University of Michigan. At UC Davis, he served as director of the Institute of Ecology from 1966-69 and from 1990-91. He is an associate director of the Center for Ecological Health Research, sponsored at UC Davis by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to coordinate studies of the many environmental stresses on various California ecosystems.