Hall of Fame: Louis Agassiz

Biographical info

Name: Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz

Born: 28 May 1807, in Freiburg, Switzerland; Died: 14 December 1873.

Ph.D.: University of Erlangen, 1829; M.D., University of Münich, 1830

Major Accomplishments:
Louis Agassiz studied under Oken and Döllinger in Germany, then with Cuvier and von Humboldt in Paris. After a position as Professor at the Lyceum of Neuchatel in Switzerland, he migrated in 1846 to the U.S., then became a professor at Harvard in 1848, where he included among his friends Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His research interests included icthyology and echinodermology, and he developed the Theory of the Ice Ages. He is considered the Father of Glaciology, and he founded the field of Paleoichthyology, as well as playing an important role in the foundation of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Academy of Sciences. However, he is most well known for his position as founder of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, and for being a staunch defender of anti-Darwinian views. He has been quoted as stating, "I trust to outlive this mania" (1867: in reference to Darwinism).

Honorific taxa:
Phascolosoma agassizii Keferstein, 1867
Polydora agassizi Claparède, 1969
Linvillea agassizi (McCrady, 1857)
Aglauropsis agassizi Fr. Müller, 1865 [Cnidaria: Hydrozoa]
Deltocyathus agassizii De Pourtalès, 1867
possibly Steganodermatoides agassizi (Campbell, 1975)