The Cross of the Hungarian Order of Civic Merit was given to Charles J. Vörösmarty (professor – CUNY, iASK) by János Áder, the president of Hungary. The venue of the ceremonial award was the Hungarian Consulate in New York City on 28th of March 2019.

Prof. Vörösmarty routinely provides scientific guidance to a variety of U.S. and international – including Hungarian – water consortia. He is a founding member and current co-Chair of the Global Water System Project that represents the input of several hundred international scientists under the International Council for Science’s Global Environmental Change Programs. He is spearheading efforts to develop global-scale indicators of water stress and is working with chief United Nations delegates who are negotiating the Rio+20 Sustainable Development Goals. He has served on a broad array of national panels, including the U.S. Arctic Research Commission (appointed by Presidents Bush and Obama), the NASA Earth Science Subcommittee, the National Research Council Committee on Hydrologic Science as Chair, a member of the NRC Review Committee on the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the National Science Foundation’s Arctic System Science Program Committee, and the Arctic HYDRA International Polar Year Planning Team. He was a consultant to the 24-agency United Nations World Water Assessment Programme and represented the International Council of Scientific Unions at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development meetings.

Charles J. Vörösmarty was the main organizer of and key-speaker at the United Nation’s Water Summit in Budapest in 2013 and in 2016. 

He is a regular guest-lecturer at iASK events in Kőszeg, like at the International Summer Universities, and KRAFT-Conferences. 

Since 2018 he is the mentor and top-advisor of the Circular Economy Program at IASK with Hillary Brown (CCNY). The project, with Hungarian and American researchers, is modeling Kőszeg and its surroundings to support a sustainable circular economy.

Laudation by Ferenc Miszlivetz (director of iASK):

“Think thoughts both great and daring!
On these be all intent!
He is not lost, whate’er his fate,
whose heart is confident!”

Mihály Vörösmarty: A bitter cup (1843)

These are the words of the Hungarian poet Mihály Vörösmarty more than 170 years ago. Heeding the advice of his famous ancestor, Charles Joseph Vörösmarty had “thoughts daring” and decided to follow through with a series of action, continuously adding new chapters to his life achievements.

Charles J. Vörösmarty, Professor and Initiative Director of the City University of New York. One of the defining figures of the hydrology profession of the United States and the world. He is a fellow at numerous international and domestic higher education institutions, the list being so long, that if you will permit me, I will refrain from reading out each of them.

Among research projects supervised by him, special mention needs to be made of the work into he is doing into integrating sustainable development considerations and nature-friendly solutions into infrastructure projects.

Hungarian academic life owes him a lot. He has received numerous Hungarian lecturers, students and researchers at the University of New Hampshire and to this day at the City University of New York. He facilitated access for our researchers to cutting edge technology space-remote sensing and computer systems in joint research projects, among others the investigation into the aridification problems of the “Homokhátság” area in the Danube-Tisza Interfluve.

He developed a joint program with the Kőszeg Institute of Advanced Studies to incorporate sustainability aspects into the development of the Western-Hungarian region.

He lectured at the Budapest University of Technical Sciences. He played a role in facilitating US and EU research grants for the joint research programs of the University of New Hampshire and the Hungarian Meteorological Service.

He took part in the planning and the organization of the Budapest Water Summit in 2013. He was one of the keynote speakers at the 2016 edition of the BWS. He will also play a prominent role in one of the scientific sections of the BWS in 2019.

As a descendant of the poet Mihály Vörösmarty, he is proud to be Hungarian, proud of his family history.