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Paul Williams is Emeritus Professor in the School of Environment at the University of Auckland. He earned his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1965 and later received the ScD from the same institution. Williams joined the University of Auckland in 1972, where he served in several leadership roles, including Deputy Dean of Science and Head of the Geography Department. He led the establishment of Environmental Science teaching in 1975 and directed major projects such as the 1974 Waitomo Cave Research Project, which developed sustainable management guidelines for the Waitomo Glow Worm Cave, and the 1983 Upper Waitemata Harbour Study for the Auckland Regional Authority, which provided guidelines for sustainable land and water management.
Williams is recognised for his world-leading research in geomorphology, hydrology, karst landscapes, and paleoclimatology over more than five decades. He assembled New Zealand stable isotopic data spanning the last 125,000 years, contributing to climate change models. As a leading expert in karst systems, which cover 13 percent of the Earth’s continental area, he has influenced international conservation efforts. He became a member of the World Commission for Protected Areas in 2001, served as an expert specialist for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) since 2008, and has been a Councillor of the IUCN Geoheritage Specialist Group since 2018. His contributions have supported the designation of numerous sites as natural World Heritage areas. Williams has authored foundational books on geomorphological research and teaching. In 2023, he was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to geoscience and environmental science.
Explore how University of Auckland and Victoria University researchers uncovered million-year-old fossils in NZ's Moa Eggshell Cave, revealing pre-human extinctions from climate and volcanism.
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