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Credit: Robert Laramie
BOG Chairman Al Gamper congratulates
Board of Governors Professor Paul
Falkowski at the Camden Campus Center.
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Paul Falkowski was named a Board of Governors Professor of Geological Sciences at a meeting of the Rutgers Board of Governors in Camden Oct. 6. Falkowski, who works in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences-New Brunswick, is acclaimed for his broad and far-reaching scientific vision, his leadership in biological oceanography and his development of variable chlorophyll fluorescence techniques.
Falkowski has been recognized for his contributions to understanding the carbon cycle and global warming. He is the co-author of a graduate level textbook and in 2003 was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He was recently the lead author in a widely reported study published in the Sept. 30 issue of the journal Science. Falkowski determined that a sharp rise in oxygen about 50 million years ago gave mammals the evolutionary boost they needed to dominate the planet. The rise in oxygen content allowed mammals to become very, very large – mammals like 12-foot-tall sloths and huge saber-toothed cats. They paved the way for all subsequent large mammals, including humans.
In his remarks, Falkowski said he owed his achievements to public education. A native of Harlem, Falkowski attended Brooklyn Technical High School and the City College of New York. His father was a coal miner with an eighth-grade education; his mother became a schoolteacher late in life. “One of the great things about this country has been the opportunity to have a public education,” Falkowski said. “All my life, public education has been the way that I’ve moved forward ... I’m very proud to be part of that tradition.”
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