Dr. Charles Wurster, a founding trustee of Environmental Defense (formerly the Environmental Defense Fund, EDF), was instrumental in banning the pesticide DDT. An emeritus professor at the Marine Sciences Research Center at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Wurster is an expert on the environmental effects of toxic chemicals.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Wurster's interest in birds was evident at a young age. He attended Quaker schools—Germantown Friends and Haverford College—receiving his bachelor's of science degree in 1952. He earned a master of science degree in chemistry from the University of Delaware in 1954 and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Stanford University in 1957. Subsequently Wurster spent a year in Innsbruck, Austria, as a Fulbright Fellow. From 1959 to 1962, he worked as a research chemist at the Monsanto Research Corporation.

In 1963, as a...