Dr. Charles Ramcharan
President & CEO
Dr. Charles Ramcharan is an aquatic ecologist with decades of research experience on invasive aquatic species, lake food web theory, the recovery of lake ecosystems from industrial damage, hard rock hydrology, and coastal ocean dynamics.
His PhD is from the University of Toronto, and he’s worked at six different universities across the USA, Germany, and Canada before settling at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario.
He was Laurentian's last Director of their School of The Environment — and with Emeritus Professor status — remains an active member of Laurentian's Vale Living With Lakes Center.
Charles founded Tunik (incorporated 2017) with the goal of making water quality data as easily accessible as weather on your phone.
Dr. Ramcharan has considerable expertise working in freshwater and coastal marine ecosystems, from the tropics to the arctic.
His research has included aquatic invasive species, recovery of lakes from historical damage by mining and smelting, fish recruitment and population assessment, complex effects of oyster predators, recovery of swamps and bayous from damage by oil and gas development, and hydrology of the Precambrian Shield.
Notable Achievements:
Applying his models -- which have become the de facto standard for predicting which freshwaters can be successfully colonized by zebra mussels -- to the lakes and rivers of Southern Quebec.
Analysis of cyanobacterial blooms in Ramsey Lake, the primary water source for the City of Greater Sudbury.
Assessment of recruitment, population growth, and productivity over seven years for several different fish species in two head water lakes in Muskoka, Ontario.
Development of management strategies for losses of wild oyster harvest to Black Drum, a benthivorous coastal fish.
Assessment of current and historical threats to water quality from oil and gas development in Caddo Lake, Louisiana.
Installation of automated weather and water quality monitoring stations at three different locations across northern Baffin Island, in Canada's Arctic.
Survey of the Andean Coralaque River System in Southern Peru for impacts of historical and current mining, as well as other human activities.