Environmental sciences research asst. professor Arthur Schwarzschild died the morning of March 15 of an apparent heart attack. Schwarzschild graduated from the University with a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences in 2004.
Schwarzschild served as the site director at Anheuser-Busch Coastal Research Center in Oyster, Va., which is the facility that hosts the Virginia Coastal Reserve Long Term Ecological Research program.
“He ran the show. He was in charge of the physical plant; he was in charge of all of the scientific operations that went on there,” said Aaron Mills, a professor of environmental sciences.
In addition to running the facility, Schwarzschild was very involved and played a central role in the research that happened there. This included a large seagrass restoration project that he pushed along by helping faculty and students with data collection.
“He played a very central role in the success of that project,” Environmental Sciences Prof. Karen McGlathery said. “He worked with me and the students and the nature conservancy in a really large-scale project restoring sea grass out in that region and doing the long term monitoring of that.”
Environmental Sciences Research Assoc. Prof. Linda Blum said Schwarzschild was especially passionate about outreach.
“What Art was really good at was his outreach and education activities,” Blum said. “So he was involved with the high schools and the middle schools and the elementary schools over on the eastern shore, trying to infuse more first-hand knowledge of ecosystems sciences to the kids at levels that were appropriate for them.”
Schwarzschild was especially proud of a program he created in 2012 with Blum and artist Alice McEnerney Cook called Art and Ecology. The goal of the program is to “to facilitate this interaction between ecology and art,” Blum said.
In the program, McEnerney Cook leads local educators in painting or drawing workshops to get them to view the environment and then Schwarzschild would teach them ecology and show them ways to incorporate ecology into their art curriculum.
“Art and science start with the same thing,” Blum said. “They start with observation. And our end goal is the same thing — to communicate something.”
By Blum’s estimation, the program has reached over 43,000 students through the education of many teachers. The program will continue to operate even though Schwarzschild has passed.
“He was a great story teller,” McGlathery said. “I realized that when we went out on the boat the other day that I’ll miss that. He really had a great way of communicating to people of all levels about why the coasts were important, why this big area, these coastal habitats meant a lot to the local economy and why science mattered.”
Schwarzschild is survived by his parents, Bill and Carol Schwarzschild, his two brothers, Edward and Jeffery Schwarzschild, and his longtime girlfriend, Emily Boone.
A memorial service will be held at the Anheuser-Busch Coastal Research Center on April 22 at 5:00 p.m.
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