Louis Agassiz, Swiss-American Polymath

Portrait of Louis Agassiz painted in 1870 by Walter Ingallis Agassiz. Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (1807-1873) Swiss-born, American naturalist, paleontologist, zoologist, and geologist. He produced a catalog of fossil fish (ichthyology) from Brazil in 1829, and completed an extensive history of European fish in 1842. After this he completed a pioneering five-volume work on fossil fish in 1843. He was the first to propose the ice age theory, and is known as the Father of Glaciology. His research on glaciers led him to conclude that ice sheets advanced and retreated over Europe and North America. He was also a leading critic of Darwin's evolution theories. In 1848, Agassiz was awarded professorship at Harvard and in 1859 he founded the Museum of Comparative Zoology. He was also a founding member of the National Academy of Sciences and an appointed regent of the Smithsonian Institution

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1807 1829 1843 1846 Agassiz Biologist Biology Classification Comparative Founding Geologist Glaciation Glaciologist Glaciology Harvard Ichthyologist Naturalist Opponent Paleontologist Polymath Rodolphe Smithsonian Speciation Swiss American Swiss-american Theory Zoologist

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