SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — A South Shore native, Paul Zander, earned his doctorate in Climate Science on May 28 at the University of Bern in Switzerland.

After four years of research, studying and some great exploring, he successfully defended his dissertation, entitled, “The varved sediments of Lake Żabińskie, Poland as a high-resolution archive of environmental change.”

The research was made possible through Swiss government funding and collaboration with the University of Gdańsk, Poland. Dr. Zander plans to apply for a fellowship which will enable him to join the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany as a visiting researcher.

He and his wife, Hilary Woodhams, who currently teaches at the international school in Bern, plan to remain in Europe for several years. Zander attended Tahoe Parents Nursery School, Sierra House, Meyers Elementary, South Tahoe Middle School, South Tahoe High School, and Lake Tahoe Community College where he received an A.A. in Mathematics. He received a Bachelor’s of Science in Environmental Science and his Master’s of Science in Geology from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.

While studying at NAU, Paul had the opportunity to travel to Alaska with Dr. Darrell Kaufman to collect sediments from several lakes in the Prince William Sound region. One summer, Zander received a National Science Foundation grant to work with Dr. Sudeep Chandra and the Tahoe Environmental Research Center to collect data on nearshore fish. He has also worked for the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, Environmental Incentives and Echo Chalet (scooping ice cream and driving boat taxi).

Following completion of his master’s degree, Zander worked at the Organic Geochemistry Lab at the University of Arizona in Tucson under the supervision of Dr. Jessica Tierney. Zander’s proud parents Lauri Kemper and Catherine Schoen, and Dave Zander and Sarah Knox look forward to celebrating his accomplishment during a visit from him this summer.