Professor Emeritus Saul Landau, the first recipient of the Hugh O. La Bounty Chair for Interdisciplinary and Applied Knowledge and an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, author and human rights activist, has died.

Landau, 77, died Sept. 9 from cancer, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, where he was a fellow since 1972.

He was known for his work on foreign and domestic policy issues, Native American and South American cultures, science and technology. Landau produced more than 40 films on social, political, historical and human rights issues. They included documentaries on Cuba, the election of Chilean President Salvador Allende, and a cover-up of health hazards related to 1950s nuclear weapons testing.

In addition to writing 14 books, he wrote for the New York Times, the Washington Post and was a regular columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1989 to 1994.

Landau won numerous honors for his work over the years, including an Emmy, the George Polk Award for Investigative Reporting, the First Amendment Award, the Edgar Allen Poe Award and the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award.

He came to Cal Poly Pomona in 1999 and served as director of digital media and international outreach programs for the College of Letters, Arts & Social Sciences until his 2006 retirement. Landau, who taught digital media programming, organized the Campus Forum series, inviting speakers to discuss Middle East conflicts and Latin American issues, U.S. foreign policy, electoral politics, the media and the death penalty.

The Institute for Policy Studies will hold a public memorial service for Landau on Saturday, Oct. 12 in Washington, D.C. Another service is planned in San Francisco at a date to be determined.

(Photo: Saul Landau)