Robert G. Varady

Robert G. Varady is a member of the last generation of Holocaust survivors. He was born in Budapest in 1943 and, with his parents, survived the final, worst years of World War II. As an 18-month-old, he was with his mother in the Budapest ghetto. His father was in and out of Hungarian forced labor camps, escaping multiple times.

As a four-year-old, with his parents, he emigrated to France, where he spent five years growing up as a French boy. In 1952, the family move to the United States, settling in New York City. There, Robert attended Stuyvesant High School and obtained B.S. and M.S. degrees in mathematics from the City College of New York and the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (now the NYU Tandon School of Engineering), respectively. In 1973, he and his wife Evelyn moved to Tucson, Arizona, where he completed his PhD in the modern history of developing-country infrastructure from the University of Arizona.

Robert spent most of his academic career as a faculty member and former director at the University of Arizona’s Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, where he is now Research Professor Emeritus of Environmental Policy. His work there addressed environmental and water-management governance and policy in arid regions, with an emphasis on transboundary issues, especially along the U.S.-Mexico border. He has studied the history of global water initiatives, transboundary aquifer governance, and water security in the Americas. He has been a consultant to UNESCO, FAO, and other global agencies on water-related issues.

Robert has co-edited 14 books, monographs, digests, edited volumes, and journal special issues; and published some 250 essays and reports on water and environmental governance, policy, and history; agricultural development; information management; and transportation systems.

He is a Fellow Member of the International Water Resources Association, past president of the International Water History Association (IWHA), and his international efforts were recognized by the University of Arizona’s 2012 Award for Excellence in Global Service.