George Lawson Pickard

George Lawson Pickard, MBE, oceanographer, educator (born 5 July 1913 in Cardiff, Wales; died 1 May 2007 in Vancouver, BC). Following military service with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, Pickard came to Canada in 1947. He was professor of physics at the University of British Columbia from 1947 to 1979 and director of the Institute of Oceanography there from 1958 to 1979. He began the studies of water properties and circulation that have provided much of our understanding of the oceanography of British Columbia's fjords and estuaries. His expertise in fjord studies later took him to study in Chile and New Zealand. As a teacher and administrator, Pickard was influential in the development of marine sciences in western Canada; his textbooks on physical oceanography received worldwide circulation.