Charles W. Ramcharan

Biography

I received all three of my degrees from the University of Toronto. I completed two consecutive post-doctorate positions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then taught as an Assistant Professor at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick. I then returned to York University for a Research Associate position, then was at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge for seven years as an Assistant Professor. My position at Laurentian University as an Associate Professor began in 2003. I teach in both the School of The Environment and the Department of Biology, and I'm an Associate Member of Laurentian's Vale Living With Lakes Center.

Research Interest

My research focus is the food webs of freshwater lakes. This includes everything from algae to fish. Mostly, I study the recovery of Sudbury-area lakes from long-term industrial damage. It's a fascinating area to work in because the lake food webs are all damaged but in very different ways. I also do a lot of work on cyanobacteria (bluegreen algae) and exotic invaders such as Eurasian milfoil. Recently, I have started to work on river ecosystems and I also have a climate change project with research on Baffin Island in Canada's high arctic.