George Evelyn Hutchinson (b. 1903, d. 1991), a professor beloved
at Yale for 43 years, was born in England. Hutchinson’s wide academic
interests included the humanities as well as the sciences, but he was
primarily an aquatic ecologist, focusing particularly on lake ecology.
Also known as the father of modern limnology,
he grew up while the field of limnology was evolving and began his
university education a year before the founding of the International
Limnological Association.
He also contributed to the
development of several other fields of science, and his understanding
of geochemistry as well as biology gave him an unusual command of
biogeochemistry. Hutchinson communicated equally well with
oceanographers, geochemists, anthropologists, paleontologists,
sociologists and behaviorists, but also was at home with artists,
writers and musicians. He was a student at Cambridge, became a
professor at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in 1925, and
arrived at Yale University in 1928 as a Post-Doctoral Fellow. He
enjoyed a distinguished career at Yale, becoming the Sterling Professor
of Zoology. While at Yale, he developed courses in natural history,
general ecology, limnology and biogeochemistry.
On his arrival in New Haven, he surveyed local lakes looking for
suitable research sites and found Linsley Pond in Branford,
Connecticut, which provided excellent material for him and his
students. As word spread of his presence, graduate students interested
in working with him began arriving, and until his retirement in 1971,
doctoral degrees were finished under his direction at the rate of about
one per year. He and his students worked in that area for the rest of
his career, and Yale researchers, notably Peabody Vertebrate Zoology
Curator David Skelly, still work there today.