Peter John Wangersky

Wangersky, Peter John

Peter John Wangersky, oceanographer (b at Woonsocket, RI 26 Aug 1927; naturalized Canadian 1975; d at Victoria, BC on 11 Jan 2007). Substantial contributions to OCEANOGRAPHY in Canada have come from Wangersky's research and teaching in chemical and biological oceanography. His degree in chemistry and subsequent work at the Scripps Inst, U Calif, and with the US Fish and Wildlife Service equipped Wangersky for further study at Yale. After positions at Miami and Yale, he joined Dalhousie as professor of chemistry in 1965, and then moved to the fledgling Institute of Oceanography in 1968, serving as chairman of the department and director of the institute 1977-80. He joined the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria in 1993 as an adjunct professor but also remained an adjunct professor at Dalhousie. His major research has illuminated patterns of distribution and dynamics of organic carbon in the sea. A sustained interest in theoretical ecology began with pioneer work on time lags in population equations and led to novel analyses of marine communities. Wangersky's former students are widely placed in universities and government laboratories.