Carmel Humphries

Carmel Humphries MRIA (3 June 1909 – 7 March 1986) was an Irish zoologist, specialist in fresh water Chironomidae. She was the first female professor of zoology and head of department in Ireland, and devised a technique for the identification of chironomid flies that is still employed today.

Life Carmel Frances Humphries was born in Waterford on 3 June 1909, to engineer William Francis, and Annie Humphries (née Palmer). During the course of her undergraduate study, Humphries won numerous scholarships, graduating in 1932 with an honours B.Sc. in botany and zoology. She went on to gain an M.Sc. and H.Dip.Ed. in zoology and education in 1933, going on to win a travelling scholarship in zoology with National University of Ireland (NUI) the same year. Humphries had developed an interest in pursuing a career in limnology (the study of lakes) rather than teaching, which she then studied abroad.

Career Humphries worked with Winifred Frost, T. T. Macan and H. P. Moon at the Freshwater biological station at Windermere in England from 1934 to 1936, focusing on the Benthic zone fauna in the lakes of Cumbria. Her work looked at the taxonomy of the larval and pupal stages of Chironomidae (non-biting midges or chironomids), resulting in a publication in the Journal of Animal Ecology in 1936. Humphries continued her study of chironomids at the Hydrobiologische Anstalt (later the Max-Planck-Institut für Limnologie) at Plön from 1936 to 1938, working with August Thienemann. Thienemann was a co-founder of the International Society of Limnology, and he was influential in Humphries undertaking the first comprehensive study of community composition and emergence periods of the Chironomidae of the Großer Plöner See. In 1957, when the British Association for the Advancement of Science convened in Dublin, Humphries was a member of the organising committee and edited the zoological section of the resulting handbook.

Later life and legacy Humphries is remembered as an entertaining lecturer, and funded some of the continued education of her department's technical staff personally. She was a sufferer of diabetes, the condition which hampered her later life. She died in San Remo Nursing Home, Bray, County Wicklow on 7 March 1986, and is buried at Glasnevin Cemetery. Zalutschia humphriesiae was named in her honour, and the UCD Carmel Humphries prize is awarded every year to the best zoology postgraduate research seminar. The Irish Biogeographical Society dedicated the 1999 issue of Bulletin of the Irish Biogeographical Society to her memory.