Melander, Axel Leonard

A.L. Melander was born at Chicago, Illinois, USA, on June 3, 1878. He became interested in insects while in high school, and studied with William Morton Wheeler at the University of Chicago and the University of Texas. He received his M.S. in 1902. Melander taught at Washington State University from 1904 to 1926, and was head of the department for 20 years. He completed his Sc.D. at Harvard University in 1914. He left Washington State in 1926 and moved to the City College of New York where he served as professor of biology and head of the department, and retired in 1943. Melander worked on many insect problems, and among his accomplishments was the first documentation of declining effectiveness of an insecticide. He collaborated with C.T. Brues on authorship of “Key to families of North American insects” (1915), and “Classification of insects” (1932). He served as president of the Entomological Society of America in 1938. Melander also accumulated one of the world’s largest...