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Face Time inquisitive and inventive
BY JULIE GARNER
A Patent Success
Catching up with Robert Charlson,
’64, professor emeritus of Atmospheric
Sciences and Chemistry, and coinventor
of the first UW-held patent
that brought royalties to the UW
Standing on the deck of the ocean
liner RMS Queen Elizabeth in 1965, Bob
Charlson and his bride were taking a
belated honeymoon trip after a year in
England, where Charlson studied as
a Fulbright Scholar. He couldn’t stop
staring at the haze in the sky over
the North Atlantic Ocean.
“I asked myself over and over, ‘why
is it so hazy way out here in the middle
of the ocean? It should be clean!’ ” recalls
Charlson, who got his doctoral degree in
atmospheric sciences from the UW. Little
did he know that question would drive
his research for the next 45 years.
Charlson is known worldwide among
atmospheric scientists for his research
into haze, or aerosols, the term used for
the small particles in the atmosphere
that affect climate and worsen lung conditions
because they contain toxic and
irritating pollutants like sulfuric acid.
When global warming research
intensified 30 years or so ago, Charlson’s
work began to be appreciated. To measure
aerosols and their effect on climate,
he invented an instrument called the
integrating nephelometer (left). It was the
first UW patent to generate royalties.
He started thinking about inventing
as an undergraduate at Stanford.
“One of my jobs was to fetch liquid
nitrogen from a big tank in the physics
department. To get there, I had
to walk past all of these glass cases
holding prototypes of the inventions
of the klystron tube (think radar and
microwave ovens) with little handwritten
cards explaining them. I began to
think about invention and to see myself
as someone who could develop ideas.”
Today, the UW processes about 200
patent applications every year. Charlson
would like to create a place on campus to
showcase the many inventions that have
come out of the UW, such as the shunt
that made kidney dialysis available to
the masses; the groundbreaking work on
protein expression in yeast that led to a
Hepatitis B vaccine; and dozens more.
“Man-made haze has helped cool
the planet but it won’t solve global
warming,” says Charlson, “considering
that there are over 600 coal-fired power
plants operating to this day in the U.S.
In China, they are opening a new coal
power plant every week or so.” Burning
coal is the largest single source of carbon
dioxide, which is a so-called “longlived
greenhouse gas.”
One delicious result of UW research
is that we can eat plump, succulent oysters
in the summer. UW researchers introduced
a condition called polyploidy, which
means that farmed oysters no longer need
to have a specific spawning season. ■
—Julie Garner, ’10, is a Columns staff writer
Learn how UW is helping researchers commercialize
innovations: www.uwc4c.com
RON WURZER
12 UW 150 Years