It's with deep sadness that we said goodbye to our friend, esteemed advisor and invaluable Living Lakes Canada Board member David Schindler in March 2021, whose brilliance, humility and dedication to fresh water protection is legendary. He is greatly missed. For an excellent article dedicated to David’s life and career, please read The Tyee article David Schindler, the Scientific Giant Who Defended Fresh Water by award-winning journalist Andrew Nikiforuk.

Killam Memorial Chair, Professor of Ecology

Department of Biological Sciences

University of Alberta

Dr. Schindler holds the Killam Memorial Chair and is Professor of Ecology in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta. His work on lakes has been widely used in formulating policy internationally. He received his doctorate from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He has served as President of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, and as Canadian National Representative to the International Limnological Society. He is the author of over 300 scientific publications. Dr. Schindler’s international awards include the G.E. Hutchinson Medal of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, the Naumann-Thienemann Medal of the International Limnological Society, the first Stockholm Water Prize (2001), the Volvo Environment Prize (1998), and the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement (2006). In 2001 he was awarded the National Science and Engineering Research Council’s Gerhard Herzberg Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, Canada’s highest scientific honour.

In May 2009, he received the Royal Canadian Institute’s Sandford Fleming Medal for public communication of science. Schindler is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Royal Society of London, a member of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences, and a foreign fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. He has received ten honorary doctorates from Canadian and US universities, including the University of Winnipeg. He is an Officer in the Order of Canada and a member of the International Water Academy. In 2008 he was appointed to the Alberta Order of Excellence. Trent University has recently named an endowed professorship in aquatic sciences after Schindler. Schindler also chaired the board of directors of the Safe Drinking Water Foundation, a small non-profit foundation that specializes in helping aboriginal communities with their water problems and in educating students about protecting freshwaters.