Dr. David Schindler
Professor of Ecology and Chair of Killam Memorial, University of Alberta
Dr. David W. Schindler holds the Killam Memorial Chair and is Professor of Ecology at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. From 1968 to 1989, as a scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, he founded and directed the Experimental Lakes Project near Kenora, Ontario, conducting experiments on whole ecosystems to directly test the effects of nutrient inputs, acid rain, climate change and other human impacts. His work on eutrophication and acid rain has been widely used in formulating ecological management policy in Canada, the United States and in Europe.
Dr. Schindler received his doctorate from Oxford University, where he studied under Charles Elton as a Rhodes Scholar. He has served as President of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, and as a Canadian National Representative to the International Limnological Society. He is the author of over 300 scientific publications.
Dr. Schindler has received numerous national and international research awards, including the the first Rigler Medal of the Canadian Society of Limnologists (1984), the 1984 Outstanding Achievement Award of the Institute of American Fisheries Biologists, 1985 G.E. Hutchinson Medal of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, the 1988 Naumann-Thienemann Medal of the International Limnological Society, the first (1991) Stockholm Water Prize, the Volvo International Environment Prize (1998), the Queen’s Jubilee Medal (2003) the 2003 Killam Prize for Natural Sciences (2003) and the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement (2006). In 2001 he was awarded Canada’s highest scientific honor, the NSERC Gerhard Herzberg Gold Medal for Science and Engineering. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Royal Society of London (UK), a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, and a member of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences. He has received ten honorary doctorates from Canadian and US universities. In 2004, he was appointed an Officer in the Order of Canada. In 2008, a professorship in aquatic sciences at Trent University was named for Dr. Schindler.
In Alberta, Dr. Schindler was a federal member of the Alberta Pacific Review Panel (1989-90). He chaired Alberta Environment’s 2005 review of Lake Wabamun. He was a member of the Alberta Government’s Environmental Protection Committee (2006), and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the provincial Safety, Security and Environment Institute. He chairs the International Review Committee for the Alberta Ingenuity Water Research Center. From 2000 until 2003 he was a member of Environment Canada’s Science and Technology Advisory Board. He was named one of 100 top Edmontonians of the first century at Edmonton’s centennial celebration. He was also inducted into the Alberta Order of Excellence in October of 2008.
