Henry Bryant Bigelow
Henry Bryant Bigelow was an American oceanographer and marine biologist.
After graduating from Harvard in 1901, he began working with famed ichthyologist Alexander Agassiz. Bigelow accompanied Agassiz on several major marine science expeditions including one aboard the Albatross in 1907. He began working at the Museum of Comparative Zoology in 1905 and joined Harvard's faculty in 1906 where he worked for 62 years.
In 1911, Bigelow was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He helped found the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1930 and was its founding director. During his life he published more than one hundred papers and several books. He was a world-renowned expert on coelenterates and elasmobranchs.
In 1948 Bigelow was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences.Legacy
Bigelow's Fishes of the Gulf of Maine continues to be a useful reference today.
Bigelow described numerous new species to science, 110 of which are recognized today according to the World Register of Marine Species. On the other hand, some 26 species and two genera are named after him.
The Henry Bryant Bigelow Medal in Oceanography is awarded by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to honor "those who make significant inquiries into the phenomena of the sea". Bigelow was the first recipient of the medal in 1960.
He was honored by the naming of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel NOAAS Henry B. Bigelow.
