Charlie Wolf, pioneer in the field of social impact assessment, died Feb. 5, 2015, at the age of 81.
Born in 1933, Wolf graduated from the University of North Carolina, and in 1963 earned a Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton. He taught at Brown from 1962 to 1973, and then from 1973 to 1975 was a pioneering social scientist with the Army Corps of Engineers.
In the mid-1970s, Wolf was the AAAS Congressional Science Fellow working with the Office of Technology Assessment. After the Three Mile Island accident occurred, he was one of the social scientists chosen to analyze the disaster and co-authored a book containing the results, Accident at Three Mile Island: The Human Dimensions.
By the late 1970s, Wolf had created the Social Impact Assessment Center, which evaluated the potential social impact on states being considered for high-level nuclear waste facilities. In the following decades, he taught at domestic and foreign universities.
Among his honors, he was the Bean Distinguished Visiting Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Carleton College.
Wolf is survived by his wife, Nancy; and a son, Deo, adopted in 1994. Deo had survived genocide in East Africa and homelessness in New York City, and was the subject of a bestseller by the noted author Tracy Kidder.
Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.