Bisby, Guy Richard, 1889-1958

Dates

• Existence: 1889 - 1958

Biographical Information

Guy Richard Bisby (1889-1958) was a native of South Dakota, born on August 17, 1889. He earned his bachelor of science degree from South Dakota State College in 1912. He worked as an assistant at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens from 1913-1914. He earned a Master's degree from Columbia University in 1917 before earning his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1918. Bisby did some teaching at Minnesota, and had a period of employment at Purdue University (1915-1916) where he worked with J.C. Arthur, North America’s leading authority on the classification of rust fungi. In 1920 Bisby was appointed professor for Phytopathology at Manitoba Agricultural College in Winnipeg. There he became the first professor of plant pathology in a Canadian university.

Except for leave periods, one of which was for nearly a year (1921-22) to study mycology and plant pathology in England, Bisby remained at the University of Manitoba until he resigned in 1937 to accept a position at the Commonwealth Mycological Institute in Kew, England, where he had a distinguished career until his retirement in 1954.

Much of Bisby's written work was as an orismologist, working on definitions of terms and organizing lists of fungi and fungal names. Bisby died on September 3, 1958.

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