Featured Faculty: Robert Hecky, Professor
McKnight Presidential Endowed Professor of Lake Ecology, member of Royal Society of Canada
Department of Biology and
Large Lakes Observatory
Interests: Great Lakes Ecology; nutrient biogeochemistry; application of stable isotopes to aquatic ecology
Courses Taught: BI 5861 Lake Ecology; BI 5869 Great Lakes Ecology and Management; BI 2802 Ecology Laboratory
Website: Robert Hecky
Professor Hecky completed a B.S. in biology at Kent State University and a Ph.D. in zoology at Duke University before accepting a post-doctoral fellowship at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
He joined the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans as a research scientist in 1973 and become a research director for the Experimental Lakes Area in 1988. While with Fisheries and Oceans he led research projects in northern Manitoba on river diversion and hydroelectric development, in the Mackenzie Delta on northern oil and gas development, and in northwestern Ontario on effects of lake size and climate variability. In 1996 he became senior scientist with the Canadian Department of the Environment and began research on the Great Lakes. Shortly thereafter he accepted a professorship in the Department of Biology at the University of Waterloo.
In 1999, he took up the United Nations University Research Chair in African Great Lakes and Rivers at the University of Waterloo. He is a frequent consultant to the World Bank on environmental and development issues affecting the African Great Lakes and their fisheries.
Prof. Hecky was appointed Canadian Commissioner to the Great Lakes Fishery commission in 2005, and he also serves on the GLFC Board of Technical Experts.
In 2007, Professor Hecky joined the Department of Biology and the Large Lakes Observatory at UMD.
Throughout his career, Prof. Hecky has maintained research interests on the aquatic ecology and fisheries of Africa and he has graduate students working throughout the Laurentian Great Lakes basin as well as on the African Great Lakes.
He serves on the editorial boards of several international journals and has authored and co-authored over 200 scientific publications.
In 2008, Professor Hecky was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada in recognition of his 30 years of research leading international groups investigating the hydrology, chemistry, biology, and paleoecology of the large lakes of the world.