The Rutgers University Board of Governors appointed Paul G. Falkowski, a professor of geological and marine sciences, as the first holder of the Bennett L. Smith Chair in Business and Natural Resources.
The university established the endowed chair – which resides jointly in Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the School of Arts and Sciences – to support a university faculty member whose research has contributed to understanding the Earth and its climate and who has been instrumental in shaping energy policy internationally. The anonymous gift establishing the endowment is part of the university’s fundraising campaign, Our Rutgers, Our Future: A Campaign of Excellence.
A Rutgers faculty member since 1998, Falkowski, who is the founding Director of the Rutgers Energy Institute, www.rei.rutgers.edu, has been recognized for his contributions to the understanding of the role of the oceans in the co-evolution of life and biogeochemical cycles.
