April
5, 2002
Major gift from Gordon Ringold and Tanya Zarucki
will support new environmental research institute at
UC Santa Cruz
SANTA
CRUZ, CA--The University of California, Santa Cruz, has established
a new environmental research institute, building on the campus's
strong tradition of interdisciplinary research in the environmental
sciences. To help launch the new institute, UCSC alumnus
Gordon Ringold and his wife Tanya
Zarucki have provided a
gift of $500,000--the largest outright gift the campus has
ever received from an alumnus.
The STEPS Institute for Innovation in Environmental Research
is designed to encourage an interdisciplinary approach that
integrates science, technology,
engineering, policy, and society (the "STEPS" approach) in studying
and solving environmental issues. The overall goal of the institute is to foster
research linking global and regional environmental processes, a major scientific
challenge that has been identified as a top priority by several national environmental
task forces over the past two years.
" Human
health depends on ecosystem health, and ecosystem health
depends on the processes linking the Earth's ecosystems.
The long-term health of our societies therefore requires
that we understand these linkages much better than we do
now," said John Thompson, professor of ecology and
evolutionary biology.
Initially, the STEPS Institute will focus on biodiversity and water issues,
said Thompson, who led an 18-month campuswide planning process that resulted
in the formation of the institute. Thompson will serve as the initial director,
and Brent Haddad, associate professor of environmental studies, will be associate
director. The institute, overseen by UCSC's Office of Research, will link environmental
research efforts campuswide, tapping expertise in a wide range of departments
in the natural sciences, social sciences, and engineering.
" The STEPS Institute is one that I feel really builds on the tremendous
diversity and strength in the environmental sciences that UCSC has already established," said
Ringold, the chairman and CEO of SurroMed, a start-up company developing pharmaceutical
and biomedical technologies. Ringold earned a B.A. in biology from UCSC and a
Ph.D. in microbiology from UC San Francisco.
Processes that occur on a global scale, such as global warming
and El Niño
events, have direct effects on regional environments and are increasingly affecting
human societies, Thompson said. Fragmentation and genetic restructuring of
ecosystems are also occurring on a global scale, as people alter the Earth's
landscapes and move genes and species across continents and oceans. Invasive
species introduced from other parts of the world during the past 100 years
now dominate many ecosystems on all continents. These rapid changes are profoundly
altering environmental processes and reshaping global patterns of biodiversity
and global water cycles.
The
STEPS Institute will seek to integrate research that addresses
global biodiversity on multiple levels, from genetics to
ecosystems. " We have to link ecology, evolution,
and genetics together so that we can understand how organisms
evolve in response to changing environmental conditions
and the introduction of new species," Thompson said. "Ecosystems
are highly coevolved assemblages of species, and we've
been introducing new species with different genetic structures,
while we really don't have a clue what that means for ecosystem
health in the long term."
The institute's other major research theme will integrate research linking
water, environment, and society, said Haddad, who is an expert on water
policy.
" Water is a critical global link between physical processes, biological
processes, ecosystems, and societies," Haddad said. "Water shapes global
patterns of genetic diversity, drives ecosystem processes, and affects the health
and economic potential of all human societies."
Several environmental research efforts currrently under way at
UCSC will be expanded under the STEPS Institute. These include
projects addressing the environmental and social consequences of
genetic restructuring of ecosystems worldwide; geographic patterns
in genetic diversity along the West Coast; ecological and genetic
dynamics of parasite-host interactions across broad geographic
landscapes; effects of environmental toxicants on large-scale environmental
processes; and effects of changing hydrologic patterns and worldwide
water use on environmental processes and on societies.
All these research problems require the linking
of global and regional processes, using approaches
that integrate science, technology, engineering,
policy, and
society, Thompson noted. " That's what STEPS is all about," he said.
