Date: 19 November 1998
Place of Ceremony: Hunter Building
Host Institution: Victoria University of Wellington
Host Country: Wellington, New Zealand
The fifteenth World Award Ceremony presented by the World Cultural Council was hosted by Victoria University of Wellington, and celebrated in the Hunter Building.
The Award Ceremony was presided by distinguished authorities of Victoria University, among them the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Michael Irving; Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Roy Sharp; Deans of the Faculties of Sciences and Humanities; the President of the World Cultural Council, Rafael Estrada and the Secretary General, Dr. Esteban M. Wild.
Prof. Charles R. Goldman, Professor of limnology of the Department of Environmental Science & Policy, University of California, Davis, USA received this award in particular for his productive research work for more than 39 years on Lake Tahoe, and it was the environmental research program which he both created and sustained that prompted members of the international scientific community to honour him.
After Prof. Goldman received the Albert Einstein World Award of Science he said, very moved: “It is incredible that I have had this outstanding honour. I never expected that a limnologist would even qualify for an award bearing the name of a real genius like Albert Einstein, who had such an incredible impact on human endeavour”.
Prof. Robert Yager winner of the José Vasconcelos World Award of Education, began his career at the University of Iowa as an Instructor and Acting Head of the Science Education program in 1956. For over 42 years he has built up one of the largest and most productive centres in the world. Graduates of the Iowa program can be found across the United States and at major teacher training and research institutions around the world. He has also been very active in terms of curricular reforms in science, genuinely changing the direction of science teaching and learning at all levels.
“I am honoured and humbled listening to these things. 42 years seemed to have slipped by very, very quickly. I find myself in the company of five others receiving this award, and it has made me to want to look at some of things that José Vasconcelos did”.
